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FAREWELL LETTERS^ 

BY WILLIAM WARD, 

OE SERAMPORE. 
WRITTEN ON RETURNING TO BENGAL IN 1821. 



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FAREWELL LETTERS 



A FEW FRIENDS 



BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 



RETURNING TO BENGAL, 
IN 1821. 

BY WILLIAM WARD, 

OF SERAMPORE, 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY E. BLISS AND E- WHITE 
No. 128 Broadway. 



SEYMOUR, PRINTER. 

1821, 



'^-5'^ 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

DEDICATION. To Divie Bethune, Esq. 

and Mrs. Bethune, .... 9 

LETTER I. To the Rev. Di-. Newman. 

— Reflections on returning to England, 13 

LETTER II. To John Breckinridge, 
Esq. — On the present spiritual state of 
the world ; and on the causes which 
have led to the neglect of the com- 
mand of Christ, to preach the gospel 
to every creature, . . . .18 

LETTER III. To the Rev. Dr. Ryland. 

— On the future state of the heathen, 34 

LETTER IV. To the Rev. Dr. Staugh- 
TON. — On the philosophical system of 
the Hindoos, . . . . .39 

LETTER V. To the Rev. Dr. Chaplin. 
— On the popular superstition of the 
Hindoos, . . . . . . 51 

LETTER VI. To Miss Hope.— On the 

state of female society in India, . . 60 
1 * 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



LETTER VIL To the Rev. Dr. Stead- 
man. — On the cruelties connected 
with the Hindoo superstition, . . 78 

LETTER VIIL To Captain B. Wickes. 
— On the impurities connected with 
the Hindoo superstition, . . . 8B 

LETTER IX. To the Rev. Christmas 
Evans. — On the concern of many of 
the Hindoos respecting a future state, 93 

LETTER X. To Richard Phillips, 
Esq. — On the necessity of a greater 
union in prayer for the Divine Liflu- 
ence, . . . . • .101 

LETTER XL To the Rev. Christo- 
pher Anderson. — On the triumphs of 
the missionary cause in India, . .116' 

LETTER XII. To the Rev. Dr. Bald- 
win. — On the success of the mission 
in India, as it respects the number and 
character of the converts, . . .137 

LETTER XIII. To the Rev. Daniel 
Sharp. — On the progress of the trans- 
lations in India, . . » .144 

LETTER XIV. To the Rev. Lucius 
BoLLEs. — On the success of the Na- 
tive Schools in India, . . .153 



CONTEx\TS. 



Page 



LETTER XV. To J. .Douglas, Esq,— - 
On the late great moral changes in the 
East, and on the Serampore Missiona- 
ry College, . . . . .161 

LETTER XVI. To Joseph Butter- 
worth, Esq. M. P. — On the striking 
nature of the change wrought in the 
views and character of a converted 
Hindoo, ...... 168 

LETTER XVIL To Mrs. Fuller.— On 
the certainty of the final triumphs of 
Christianity, . . . . .178 

LETTER XVIII. To a Missionary Stu- 
dent. — Advice on the importance and 
duties of the Missionary Life, . .189 

LETTER XIX. To Dr. Charles Stu- 
art. — On the origin of the Mennon- 
ites, 202 

LETTER XX. To the Rev. Joseph 
KiNGHORN. — On the manner of wor- 
ship, &.C. among the Mennonites, .211 

LETTER XXI. To the Rev. W. H. 
Angas. — On the doctrines received by 
the Mennonites, . . . .21.5 

LETTER XXII. To the Rev. N. Mess- 



8 CONTENTS. 



Page 



CHAERT. — On the number of churches 
among the Mennonites, . . . 222 

LETTER XXIII. To the Rev. J. J. Ro- 
bertson. — On the state of rehgion in 
Holland, . . . . . .227 

LETTER XXIV. To the Rev. George 
Barclay. — On the state of religion in 
America, . . . . . . 232 

LETTER XXV. To Mrs. Stretton.— 
On the constitution and present state 
of the Episcopal Church in America, . 241 

LETTER XXVL To the Rev. G. Pike. 
— On the answers to prayer, as seen 
in the present remarkable movements 
among the heathen, . . , .248 



TO 

DIVIE BETHUNE, ESQ. 

AND 

MRS. BETHUNE, 

OF NEW- YORK. 



London, May 24, 1821. 
My Dear Friends, 

Some reason or other for publishing 
these letters will, I suppose, be expected : 
and yet, you know, the rendering such an 
account is often, to an author, more un- 
pleasant than writing the book itself. 
You will not wonder, therefore, that I 
wish to blunt the edge of this difficulty 
by turning that which should have been a 
preface into a letter, and a letter to my be- 
loved friends in New- York. In your 
company I shall lose some of my awk- 
wardness perhaps. 



10 DEDICATION. 

Several friends in England have sug- 
gested the propriety of giving, in a more 
accessible form, those accounts of the 
state of the heathen in India, and of our 
mission there, which formed the principal 
contents of the discourses I was called to 
deliver on my return to England. And 
similar suggestions have been made in 
America, especially by Dr. Chaplin and 
other brethren in the state of Maine. The 
greater part of these letters, therefore, 
have been written in conformity with the 
ideas of these friends. 

My reasons for writing the letters to 
Mrs. Fuller, to a missionary student, and 
the four last letters, need not be offered. 

When at Norwich last year, the Rev. 
Joseph Kinghorn expressed a hope that I 
might, in visiting Holland, find some ma- 
terials for giving a better account of the 
present state of the Mennonites than was 
generally possessed in England. Through 
the assistance of the Rev. N. Messchaert 
of Rotterdam, and of my beloved compa- 



DEDICATION. 1 1 



nion, the Rev. W. H. Angas, I obtained 
from three Dutch works, the contents of 
letters 19, 20, 21, and 22. 

The whole of these accounts appear in 
the form of Farewell Letters, just to gratify 
my own feelings. I hope the persons to 
whom they are addressed will excuse the 
appearance of their names here without 
leave. 

I rejoice that I have visited America ; 
that I have seen some part, at least, of 
the New World, the chosen refuge of the 
puritans, and of many an eminently de- 
voted christian; the land of equal privi- 
leges; of pure and heavenly light; the 
country to which, under God, next to my 
ow n, the eyes of every friend of God and 
man on earth are directed ; the hope of 
the world. 

I ow^e to you, my dear friends, under a 
gracious Providence, a great share of the 
comfort and success which have attended 
my visit to America: I found Serampore 
in your family. Your influence raised a 



^2 DEDICATION. t 

considerable part of the fund now left in 
America for sending forth Hindoo minis- 
ters of the gospel from the Serampore col- 
lege ; and through your letters of intro- 
duction I obtained access to some of the 
most devoted christians in the United 

States. 

Many thanks for the Memoirs of your 
dear mother, Mrs. Graham. It was the 
only book I read during my passage to 
England. What a high consecration of 
herself to God ! What deep humility ! 

Accept of the overflowing feelings of 

the heart of, 

My dear friends. 
Your most obliged friend and servant, 

W. WARD. 



'^^^^^' 



FAREWELL LETTERS. 



LETTER I. 



To the Rev. Dr. Newman, Stepney. 

The Hercules, at sea, March 26, 1821. 

My Dear Sir, 

When I left New-York for Liverpool 
yesterday, I considered it as the com- 
mencement of my return to Serampore ; 
and I resolved to devote the leisure and 
retirement I might enjoy in my cabin to 
these farewell letters, begun at your sug- 
gestion. 

After an absence of twenty years from 
England, it was to be expected, that the 
great moral changes of so considerable 
and so remarkable a period? the success- 
ful attempts to revive the unity and ener- 
gies of the primitive age, and the forma- 
tion of so many benevolent institutions, 
would produce a very strong and delight- 
ful impression on the mind of such an 
exile. 

2 



14 REFLECT lONS^^ 

I recollect, that as soon as I set my feet 
on board the Criterion* in 1799, on my 
way to India, to join Mr. Carey and Mr. 
Thomas residing there since 1793, I lay 
down on a seat upon the deck to read 
the voyage of the DufF, then recently 
published. The Bible Society, with its 
auxiharies, and still more interesting as- 
sociations; and numerous other institu- 
tions, which have entitled the age in 
which we live to be denominated the 
" suttee joog," i. e. the " age of truth," 
did not at that time exist. 

It was impossible, then, not to exult in 
observing, an my return, the progress of 
the kingdom of Christ, in a country en- 
deared by every youthful recollection^ 
and rendered still dearer by absence, so 
long an absence, and by the painful con- 
trast between the land of bibles, of chris- 
tian temples, christian ministers, and chris- 
tian institutions, and a land full of dead 
idols, heathen temples, priests, " abomi- 
nable idolatries," and containing One 
Hundred Millions of degraded idolaters. 

Ah ! my dear Doctor, I can never con- 



* Commanded by Capt. B. Wickes, senior, of Philadelphiay 
who still lives, and whose great humility and ardent Christiasi. 
friendship cannot be forgotten by his surviving passengers. 



ON RETURNING TO ENGLAND. 15 

vey to your mind that awful feeling of 
christian solitude — that overwhelming 
loneliness, which I have sometimes expe- 
rienced when standing, 15,000 miles from 
a christian land, among Forty or Fifty 
Thousand mad idolaters, hearing their 
shouts and seeing their frenzy. How 
piercing the thought, that this was an ex- 
hibition of the mental and spiritual condi- 
tion ; this the brutal worship, and this the 
preparation for eternity, of 500,000,000 
of the human race ! Oh ! under these 
impressions, the christian church be- 
comes almost invisible, and the work to 
be accomplished appears so prodigious, 
that nothing but the recollection of the 
promises, of Calvary, and of Pentecost, 
preserves the mind from absolute despair. 
But to return to Britain: to find in the 
establishment* so many labourers " doing 
the work of evangelists," and a Misi^iona- 
ry Society, increasing daily the extent 
and the sacred energy of its operations ; 
— to perceive the great increase of dis- 



* W^hen I left England, the peculiar doctrines of the gospel 
had not been preached, I believe, in the five established 
churches at Derby since the time of the puritans. I was hap- 
py, however, to find, on visiting this my native place in 1819, 
that two of these churches had recently been blessed with cler- 
gymen who followed the apostolic rule, 1 Cor, ii, 2. 



1 6 REPLECTIOi\S 

sentingand Weslevan-methodist chapels, 
and the vast additions to their societies ; 
—to see the pious members of christian 
churches visiting the benighted villages, 
and thus dispersing the last remains of 
heathen darkness in England ; — to see 
rising in everj part of the country institu- 
tions well suited to remove iscnorance, 
profligacy, and misery, the whole of the 
pious youth in Britain engaging in these 
truly christian efforts ; — and to recognise, 
amidst all this increasing ardour, so much 
christian liberality and union — how, my 
dear Sir, how could such an exile, sur- 
rounded with summer-scenery like this, 
help exclaiming, " And is this the coun- 
try of my nativity ?" — " Thou shalt no 
more be termed Forsaken ;— neither shall 
thy land any more be termed Desolate ; 
but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and 
thy land Beulah ; for the Lord delighteth 
in thee." 

May you still be enabled, my dear Sir, 
to contribute a large share towards the 
religious prosperity of our country ! May 
many a christian missionary go forth, en- 
riched by your instructions, and formed 
by your holy example, and become a 
faithful and successful herald of salvation, 



ON RETURNING TO ENGLAND. 1? 

Remember, before " the Father of Mer- 
cies," the 100,000,000 of Hindoo idola- 
ters, and their and your servant, for Je- 
hus' sake. 

W. WARD. 



2 * 



18 PRESENT MORAL STATE 



LETTER II. 

To John Breckinridge, Esq. of Princeton 
College, New-Jersey. 

The Hercules^ at sea, March 27, 1821. 
My Dear Friend, 

The frankness with which you entered 
on the discussion of christian missions 
with a stranger, in a very transient visit, 
and the blame you so unhesitatingly took 
to yourself for neglect in reference to this 
stupendous subject, must be my apology 
for addressing this letter to you. 

Yes, there has been a most awful neg- 
lect of the spiritual interests of mankind; 
and the criminality of this neglect must 
lie somewhere. 

What is the state of the world ? — The 
number of its inhabitants is, I believe, ge- 
nerally supposed to be about Eight Hun- 
dred Millions* The situation of the coun- 
tries which all these beings inhabit ; the 
degree of civilization to which they have 
attained; their languages; their litera- 
ture; their manners and customs; the 
climate, soil, and productions of each of 
these countries, and a great variety of 



OF THE WORLD, l9 

other circumstances connected with the 
present existence of these millions, have 
been, to a certain extent, ascertained. 
No want of talent and zeal in those who 
have enriched our libraries on these sub- 
jects: they deserve well of mankind. It 
is in the christian church only that cow- 
ardice and iodiiference to the state of 
the world, have been placed among the 
virtues. 

In the commission given by our Lord 
to his disciples, what an immense field 
did he open for the exercise of christian 
philanthropy and heroic enterprise ! "> Go 
ye into all the world ; preach the gospel 
to every creature." By a mysterious, 
yet mighty influence, he infused into their 
spirits all the fervours of a divine bene- 
volence: and thus constituted them, in 
his absence, the representatives of the 
Divine Mercy in the world, and the se- 
lected agents through whom all the bless- 
ings flowing from the interposition of 
Christ were to be imparted to mankind, 
till all the effects of the curse should be 
removed from the earth. With such an 
impulse as this given it, and with such 
a design unquestionably, the vessel of 
mercy and salvation was launched on the 



20 PRErBEXT MORAL STATE 

ocean of this world immediately after the 
ascension of our Lord. 

And what is now the spiritual condition 
of our race?— Five Hundred Millions, it 
is notorious, remain to this hour Pagan 
idolaters, and One Hundred Millions more 
are the followers of the impostor Muhum- 
mud. Two hundred millions only are left 
wearing the christian name ; and in order 
to make the calculation respecting the 
real state of this remnant as favourable 
as possible^ we will suppose Princeton to 
be a fair epitome of the whole christian 
world. Is there one person in four in 
Princeton who appears to be brought de- 
cidedly under the influence of christian 
principles ? I fear not. We have then 
less than 50,000,000 of real christians on 
earth at any given time, and all the rest 
(750,000,000) are living and dying with- 
out God in the world ! And this is not 
the picture of the worst, but of the best 
period of time, next to the days of the 
apostles. Perhaps there never existed 
more good men on earth at one time than 
there are at present ; and yet this leaves 
more than fifteen out of sixteen of the hu- 
man race unacquainted with the salvation 
whichis in Christ Jesus; — and this havock 
made by sin and death has continued with- 



OF THE WORLD. 21 

out interruption, day by day, and hour by 
hour, through all the ages since the fall. 

There is something so fearful, so tre- 
mendous in this retrospect, that I do not 
wonder that men who have never known 
" the terrors of the Lord," and " the 
exceeding sinfulness of sin," should reject 
the theory altogether. While looking 
down into this abyss, my dear Friend, I 
am seized with a shivering horror. I trem- 
ble exceedingly. And yet the truth which 
is here so deeply impressed on my mind 
is the same as that which I learn from the 
history of the fallen angels, left without a 
Saviour ; from the flood ; as that which I 
receive in Gethsemane and at Calvary; 
and which is irresistibly confirmed while 
I look at the civil, and mental, and moral 
condition of these Seven Hundred and 
Fifty Millions of Pagans, &c. All pro- 
claims the fearful truth, that there is a 
criminality, a turpitude, a desert in sin, 
which we cannot comprehend. And if it 
were the will of God, that the law should 
take its course, without mercy, to the end 
of time, what could we say ? — " Is God un- 
just that taketh vengeance? God for« 
bid." 

But if in this fearful condition the 
world is not to remain-^if a brighter dei° 



22 CAUSES OF THE NEGLEOT OF 

tiny, a most glorious transformation awaits 
it — and if the command '' to teach ali na- 
tions," has never been repealed nor sus- 
pended, then there must have been a 
most shocking neglect of duty somewhere. 

Seeing so many prophets had painted 
this brighter period in the most glowing 
colours, and had raised their loftiest, their 
sweetest strains to usher in the reign and 
universal conquests of the Messiah ; and 
seeing our Lord himself repeatedly refer- 
red to these halcyon days, and directed 
his disciples to a universal dissemination 
of his gospel, and to the work of universal 
teaching, how^, — these records being read 
hy the christian church every sabbath- 
day, — how shall we account for christians 
having left, for seventeen hundred years, 
in a state of perfect brutality and crime, 
Seven Hundred and Fifty Millions of 
deathless minds committed to their espe- 
cial care by the Great Head of the 
church ? 

What makes this neglect the more 
strange and unaccountable is, that the 
command comes from the highest possi- 
ble authority — that this command is most 
express, and its meaning most palpable — 
that the Being who issued it said, at the 
very time it proceeded from his lips. 



THE COMMISSION OF CHRIST. ZJ 

" Mark! I am with you, even unto the end 
of the world," — that this Being has "all 
power in heaven and upon earth," — that 
this command is closely connected with 
the eternal condition of all these succes- 
sive swarms of men, eight hundred mil- 
lions composing each generation — and 
that every one of those to whom the exe- 
cution of this commission is confided, is 
supposed to possess the mind that was in 
Christ Jesus, who came " to seek and to 
save that which was lost," and to have, as 
the distinguishing feature of his charac- 
ter, an overwhelming sense of the value of 
the human soul. 

How, with a provision perfectly com- 
mensurate with the extent of the commis- 
sion — with a command, from the Being 
who was himself the atonement, that every 
creature should hear the gospel — with 
such proofs before us that this gospel is 
the power of God to salvation — how, with 
all these facts staring us in the face — how 
is it, that we have never attempted to 
carry these glad tidings beyond the walls 
of our own churches ? How can we apo- 
logize for this criminal neglect, when our 
fellow-countrymen, unassisted by the 
principles and motives which inspire the 
christian, have, within a very few years. 



24 CAUSES OF THE NEGLECT OF 

amongst you, founded a new world, and 
amongst us, founded an empire compri- 
sing 100,000,000 of heathen subjects ? 

What pestilential influence can have 
thus withered the arms of 50,000,000 of 
christian soldiers, to whom had been in- 
trusted "the sword of the Spirit," and neu- 
tralized within them all those high and 
sacred principles which had been impart- 
ed to them in their christian birth, and 
stript them of those energies which, 
under their Great Captain, had been 
enough to conquer the whole world ? 

My dear Friend, the cause of this total 
abandonment of effort, under such a lead- 
er, under such an inspiration, and with 
such prospects, is one of the most singu- 
lar, and yet one of the most important in- 
quiries, which christians at this day can 
possibly institute. 

It will be said, that for many centuries, 
those who felt the genuine force of chris- 
tian principles, were in too depressed a 
state to make efforts for the spread of the 
gospel : their whole strength was required 
to preserve any portion of united exis- 
tence. They were in the situation of men 
in a besieged fortress ; attacks upon the 
territories of the enemy were out of the 
question. This defence, to a certain ex- 
tent, must be admitted. But will He 



THE COMMISSION OF CHRIST. 25 

" whose eves are as a flame of fire, and 
his voice as the sound of many waters," 
accept this as an apology for the indiffer- 
ence and inactivity of the last two hun- 
dred years — for the apathy of the present 
hour ? 

1. It is an awful fact, that the spirit of 
missions has to christianize the church, 
before the church can christianize the 
world. There is scarcely a single body 
of christians on earth that has not lost 
the primitive energy and enterprise, in a 
thorough subjection to doctrinal or prac- 

tical SELFISHNESS. 

2. If we 'vere merely in a profound 
sleep, we might be roused ; but the state 
o^ large bodies of professing christians 
reminds one of a garrison, who, to keep 
out the enemy, have kept up the draw- 
bridges so long that they cannot be low- 
ered again, and thus all egress is prevent- 
ed. In the state of still larger christian 
bodies, we are reminded of a garrison, 
who have become so fond of garrison duty, 
and garrison fare, that they have no wish 
to enter upon the campaign and engage 
the enemy. 

3. But there are certain theories and 
practices still tenaciously adhered to, 
which are either directly at variance with 

3 



26 CAUSES OF TBfE NEGLECT OF 

the commission of Christ, or which para- 
lyse all missionary energy. 

4. Those views of the divine sovereignty 
which diminish, in the mind of the reci- 
pient, all compassion for the unconverted, 
and every influential impression of the ab- 
solute and inseparable connexion between 
the end and the means, must necessarily 
produce an indifference to the use of 
means, where vigorous effort is required^ 
and where expense is to be incurred. 

5. Those ideas of the atonement w hich 
prevent a minister from pressing the gos- 
pel calls and invitations upon the attention 
of the unconverted, must in a great de- 
gree unfit such a person for the work as- 
signed to ministers in the commission of 
the Lord Jesus. 

6. It is too common to confine the chris- 
tian ministry to the building up of the 
church. Many ministers, 1 fear, seldom 
preach but to believers, and about their 
duties and privileges. Treating the Bi- 
ble as a text-book, and finding it full of 
that which is to make the man of God per- 
fect, they imagine that they cannot be 
wrong while they preach from the Bible 
and according to it ,* seldom asking them- 
selves this question, ' To accomplish what 



THE COMMISSION OP CHRIST. 27 

•' objects was the christian ministry institu- 
ted ?' But ought we not to understand, 
that the Bible is thus full of instruction to 
the believer, that he may stand in less 
need of the labours of him, whose main 
work is to call sinners to repent and believe 
the gospel? Is it any wonder, when the 
minister makes so small a reference to 
the unconverted, that the people should 
fieel no concern for the heathen ? It can- 
not be matter of surprise, that additions 
to such churches are so rare : the conver- 
sion of sinners is not sought after; it 
makes no prominent part of the work of 
the minister. And if he were to devote 
much of his preaching to the calling of 
sinners, he would inevitably be placed 
among those who are mere novices in the 
knowledge of christian mysteries. A cele- 
brated preacher in Scotland was spoken 
of one day, in my hearing, for this very 
reason, as standing in need of some one 
to teach him the way of the Lord more 
perfectly. And thus the Christian minis- 
try is confined to teaching*, and the sub- 

* The offices of apostles and prophets have ceased in the 
•church, if the word prophets in Ephes, iv. 2, signify those who 
interpreted the discourses delivered in an unknown tongue. But 
where is the next order. Evangelists, and why are pastors or 
teachers the only order left? Does not this simple fact supply 
the testimony of volumes, and prove, that our churches have 
jost sight of the great object of their existence ? 



28 CAUSES OF THE NEGLECT OF 

lime work of preaching is almost laid 
aside. Hence a vast pulpit preparation 
is necessary to produce incessant variety, 
to humour the taste of the people, to keep 
them satisfied with their state, and ^to 
avoid the shadow of an opinion which has 
not passed the human ordeal. In the cold 
and dull effects arising out of this system, 
we see the infliction of that punishment 
which might be expected to follow such 
a departure from the charge given at Be- 
thany. Not only are sinners not con- 
verted, but these services, except where 
extraordinary talents are possessed^ are, 
for the most part, exceedingly destitute 
of interest. A meeting for prayer is often 
much more edifying. The fact is, that 
most of the professors in England, &c. la- 
bour under a preaching surfeit ; hence so 
many bad humours break out, plainly in- 
dicative of the nature of the disease. And 
yet some ministers are alarmed, lest the 
engagements of their hearers in Sunday 
school and other exercises, should des- 
troy their personal religion. But gospel 
blessings are to be expected much more 
in active engagements, than in a care 
only for personal enjoyments : see Genesis 
xii. 2. Prov. xi. 25. And the evident bless- 
ing of God resting on those who thus de- 



THE COMMISSION OP CHRIST. 29 

devote themselves to the good of others, 
especially of the rising generation, re- 
moves every shadow of doubt on this in- 
teresting point. When a minister, whose 
life has been spent in th^ work of teach- 
ing, and whose ministry has had little re- 
ference to the extension of the kingdom 
of Christ, comes to die, he can have no 
share in the consolation flowing from Da- 
niel xii. 3 : " They that turn many to 
righteousness shall shine as the stars for 
ever and ever." How different the close 
of a life in which the minister has spent 
all his energies in pleasing his people, to 
that of the minister, however small his 
parts, who has been successful in " win- 
ning souls." Prov. xi. 30. 

7. Other ministers dwell almost exclu- 
sively on the privileges of believers ; 
scarcely daring to touch at all on duty 
and obligation, lest they should be consi- 
dered as legalists ; and this is so suited to 
the unsanctiiied taste of men, that the 
hearers not unfrequently compel the mi- 
nister to become himself the example of 
the effects of his own doctrine : they con- 
tribute scarcely enough to keep him from 
starving. How should such congrega- 
.3 * 



30 CAUSES OF THE NEGLECT OF 

tions do any thing for maintaining minis- 
ters among the heathen ? 

8. It is possible also so to preach on 
the subject of election, as to please a 
congregation by bringing them to indulge 
the most contracted ideas of the kingdom 
of Christ, exhibiting it only in connexion 
with the awful displays of divine justice, 
instead of expanding the mind, and stimu- 
lating it to exertion, by exhibitions equal- 
ly scriptural, but in which we behold the 
whole world brought into the fold of 
Christ. The baneful effects on missions 
of such partial displays of this scriptural 
doctrine, (given to comfort believers, but 
believers of an order of piety to which 
few in our day attain,) need not be en- 
larged upon. 

9. In the same spirit of selfishness a 
society, say of three hundred members, 
maintain a man to gratify them by a reli- 
gious exhibition every sabbath-day, with- 
out any reference to the state of the un- 
converted, or at least with a very partial 
one. Hence three parts out of four of the 
congregations in America and England do 
nothing, or next to nothing, for the con- 
version of the wicked in their own streets. 
The heathen, placed fifteen thousand 



THE COMMISSION OF CHRIST. 31 

miles from them, are not likely, in such a 
state of feeling, to be remembered. 

10. But the greatest impediment to the 
introduction and culture of a right spirit 
on this most important subject, will, per- 
haps, be found in such a love of the world 
as stands reproved in the fifth chapter of 
the Acts of the Apostles. It was not with- 
out reference to a state of the church like 
that of the present times, that the sin of 
Ananias and Sapphira was so awfully pu- 
nished, just when the gospel was begin- 
ning its progress through the world. 

Surely every christian society should 
consider, that they are united together, 
not for themselves, but for the extension 
of the kingdom of Christ. Without de- 
pending on the labours of the evangelist 
whom they maintain, the Saviour has 
made ample provision in the Holy Scrip- 
tures, for the edification of his church, in 
the gifts of church-members and the pri- 
vileges of a church-state, in multitudes of 
excellent works on every doctrinal and 
practical subject, &c. Those christians 
who have pleaded most strenuously for 
the duty of mutual exhortation, would 
have been in a good measure apostolical 
if they had united to maintain an evange- 
list to preach the gospel freely, (as far as 



32 CAUSES OF THE NEGLECT OF 

the powers of one individual could go,) 
to every creature. In this way the apos- 
tles received aid from their brethren — 
But in making no provision for extending 
the Saviour's kingdom, and in leaving the 
whole of th^ unconverted to the bald in- 
structions of a secular ministry, in a room 
apparently private, I think they have sure- 
ly been mistaken. 

Let a christian minister bend his prin- 
cipal attention to preaching the gospel, 
that is, instructing the world to which he 
is sent; let every gift in the church be 
employed in the instruction of the young, 
in visiting the abodes of the ignorant and 
the afflicted, in distributing tracts and the 
Holy Scriptures, and let the gifted mem- 
bers edify the church in meetings of 
church-members ; and then the church 
will assume an attitude truly primitive. — 
And if the members be really imbued with 
the spirit of Christianity, the energies of 
this christian provision^^ for the teaching 
of the whole world will soon be seen in 
the change wrought upon the surround- 
ing population. 

Whatever apologies may be made for 

* To suppose that our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded his 
church to teach all nations, without affording the means of obey- 
ing this command, would be highly profane. There is this pow- 
er somewhere : where is it ? 



THE COMMISSION OF CHRIST 33 

die inactivity of christian societies while 
under the overwhelming power of anti- 
christ, these apologies, in America and 
Britain, can be accepted no longer; and 
let us hope, my dear Friend, that no 
doctrinal', no practical errors will now be 
permitted to enfeeble those energies de- 
rived from Calvary, and from Pentecost, 
and which are ultimately to give to the 
Lord Jesus universal dominion. 
I am. 
My dear Friend, 

Most truly yours, 

W. WARlr 



34 DO THE HEATHEN PERISH ? 

LETTER III. 

To THE Rev. Dr. Ryland, Bristol. 

The Hercules^ at sea^ March 28, 1821. 
My Dear Doctor, 

The spiritual state of the world, to a 
mind not cauterised by the most mon- 
strous perversions of those scripture truths 
which relate to the Divine sovereignty, 
the inauences of the Holy Spirit, &;c. is, 
and ought to be, the most heart-rending of 
any thing connected with our present ex- 
istence. Perhaps the statement contain- 
ed in the preceding letter, relative to the 
number of the heathen, &c. may not be 
minutely correct; but it is not the least 
affecting part of this awful recital, that a 
million placed on one side or the other 
still leaves almost all the human race in 
a state too dreadful to be alluded to with- 
out feelings ofindescribable agony. While 
we contrast our circumstances with those 
of ail those countless myriads who have 
passed into eternity '' without hope,'' our 
adorations are mixed with trembling, and 
we are compelled to exclaim, " How un° 



DO THE HEATHEN PERISH ? 3/? 

searchable are his judgments, and his 
ways past finding out." 

With what feelings should a christian 
view these ravages of sin and death ?* — 
With Satanic congratulation ? With stoi- 
cal apathy ? Or with the feelings of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, when, in the broken 
language of the most poignant grief, he 
lamented the destiny of a city about to be 
awfully visited for the commission of a 
crime, in which he himself was to be the 
sufferer ? 

Some persons doubt, whether it accord 
with the Divine goodness to punish the 
heathen living and dying in a state of gross 
ignorance. This is, indeed, my dear 
Doctor, a very delicate and difficult ques- 
tion; yet, leaving the deceased heathen 
to be dealt with, as we are sure they will 
be, according to the nature of their pro- 
bationary state, and according to their 
works, it might be asked. If the ignorance 
of the heathen exonerate them from 
blame, and if they do not perish, (what- 
ever perishing may mean when applied 
to the heathen,) does not the interposition 
of Christ appear to have been wholly un- 

* " My God ! I feel the mournful scene ! 
My bowels yearn o'er dying men ! 
And fain my pity would reclaim, 
And snatch the fire-brands from the flame.'" 



36 DO THE HEATHEN PERISH ? 

necessary ? It becomes available, ac- 
cording to this hypothesis, not to save 
from perishing, but only as making a mere 
fraction of the race rather more happy 
than they otherwise would have been. — 
What becomes of numerous passages, 
speaking such language as the follow- 
ing ? — " That whosoever believeth might 
not perish ;"-—-" They that sin without 
law shall perish without law ;"— ^" Be not 
deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idola- 
ters, &c. &c. shall inherit the kingdom of 
God ;" — ^" i\t that time ye were without 
hope ;"■—'• The fearful, and the unbeliev- 
ing, and idolaters, &c. shall have their 
portion in the lake," Sic, How shall we 
account for the feelings of the apostle of 
the heathen, for a life of incredible exer- 
tion like his, and for bis language, '^ I be- 
came all things to all men, if by any means 
I might save some," if the heathen are not 
in danger of being lost ? Finally, if hea- 
thens are not in a perishing condition, 
and if carrying the gospel to them will 
bring them into such a state, then the ve- 
ry reverse of this passage will be true, 
" How beautiful upon the mountains are 
the feet of him that bringeth good ti- 
dings," &;c. 

I have no objection, if such an idea 



DO THE HEATHEN PERISH ? 37 

can be fairly established, to believe, that 
Cornelius's prayers were heard while a 
heathen and destitute of faith in Christ ; 
and that God does, by his Spirit, change 
the hearts of heathens, as he does those 
of-dying infants, imparting to them the 
blessings pf salvation through the Re- 
deemer. 5ut then I must observe, that, 
amidst a pretty large acquaintance with 
the heathen in India, / have never seen 
one man who appeared to " fear God and 
work righteousness." On the contrary, 
the language of the apostle seems most 
strikingly applicable to them all : " There 
is none righteous, no not one ; there is 
none that understandeth ; there is none 
that seeketh after (the true) God. Their 
throat is an open sepulchre* ; with their 
tongue they have used deceit f; the poi- 
son of asps is under their lipsj; their feet 
are swift to shed blood §; and the way of 
peace they have not known." 

How happy are you, my dear brother, 
in having had committed to you the work 



* The impurity of their conversation is beyond all descrip- 
tion. 

t They are finished adepts in the art of deception. 

t For slander and abuse they stand unrivalled, even amongst 
the most degraded of mankind. 

^ Oh, how strikingly is this exemplified in the eagerness with 
which the Hindoos go into the work of immolating the poor 
widow and other human victims ! 

4 



38 DO THE HEATHEN PERISH ? 

of assisting pious young men to beconie 
the agents of the Father of mercies in 
reconciling the world to himself by Jesus 
Christ; and to carry to these heathens 
the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. 
May you still be spared to be very suc- 
cessful in this divine employment ! 
Yours, very faithfully, 
W. WARD 



ON THE RESTRICTED PROGRESS, &€. 39 

LETTER IV. 

To the Rev. Dr.STAUGHTON, Philadelphia. 

The Hercules, at sea, March 29, 1821. 
My Dear Doctor, 

The restricted progress of Christianity, 
and the moral darkness in which so great 
a portion of the globe has remained, not- 
withstanding the Sun of Righteousness 
has arisen, and the Desire of all nations 
has appeared, forms one of the most mys- 
terious dispensations of Providence which 
has ever occupied human attention. 

That many acts of the Divine Govern- 
ment should be to us inscrutable, arises 
out of the very nature of things: and, 
among other causes, the imperfection of 
our moral vision makes this inevitable. 
Those parts of the divine procedure in 
particular, which depend for elucidation 
upon events not yet ripe for execution, 
must necessarily remain in a state of mys- 
tery. We look to heaven as to that state in 
which " we shall know as we are known;-' 
but I apprehend many present mysteries 
will be unfolded by the state of the 
church in the last times, as the New Tes- 



40 ON THE RESTRICTED PROGRESS 

tament church has unfolded the myste- 
ries, types, and prophecies of the Old ; 
and, among other things to be then deve- 
loped, the reasons for the small progress 
of Christianity through so many ages, will 
be much more clearly manifested. 

When the Redeemer shall have ac- 
complished the defeat of all his enemies; 
shall have removed from the abodes of 
men ail the loathsome marks of the late 
rebellion, and of the infernal tyranny 
which had perpetuated its ravages during 
six thousand years, and shall have ex- 
tended his reign over the whole of his 
once-lost empire ; when he shall have un- 
folded, age after age, the extent of the 
good he communicates, in the transforma- 
tion and blessedness of eight hundred 
millions of minds, and when he shall have 
given to the human character the gilded 
lustre of the setting dispensation — then, 
what an amazing contrast to all the 
systems of heathenism, operating as they 
had done for thousands of years on so 
vast a portion of the human family, will 
Christianity present, in the fulness of its 
moral glory, and in the fulness of its 
benefits ! 

It has pleased God, while he has pro- 
vided a remedy for the present and future 



W CHRISTIANITY. 41 

consequences of the apostacy, and has 
been exhibiting the most interesting 
proofs of the efficacy of this provision on 
the human character, to permit the wisest 
men, the greatest minds ever formed, in 
different ages, to bring forward, in refer- 
ence to the spiritual state of man, the re- 
suits of their combined powers. 

These theories have each had a long 
trial on vast masses of men ; and all have 
utterly failed, and all have sunk into de- 
served contempt when brought on any 
one point, into comparison with Chris- 
tianity. It is not a contrast between the 
systems of Socrates and Pythagoras : it 
is exactly that kind of failure which we 
expect when the competition is between 
man and God : 1 have sometimes asked 
an unbeliever to explain to me the theory 
which he would give me instead of Chris- 
tianity. We have, however, in the works 
of the wisest heathens, the very substitute 
we solicit ; for none of these modern un- 
believers pretend to be wiser than the 
Greek philosophers, or to have a system 
different from theirs. 

It may be objected, however, that at 

this distance of time, we know but very 

imperfectly, on many points, what were 

the opinions of these philosophers. Had 

4 * 



42 ON THE RESTRICTED PROGRESS 

we been their contemporaries; had we 
seen the ejffects of their systems on the 
people who embraced them, we might 
then have been able to hav e decided on 
the exclusive claims of Christianity. 

My dear brother, in the writings of 
the Hindoos, and in the effects of these 
writings on a population of one hundred 
millions, during a longer trial than has 
yet been allotted to Christianity, we have 
the very means of proof that these unbe- 
lievers ask for — present, palpable, and 
living proof 

In this letter, I propose attempting an 
abstract of the philosophical doctrines 
most popular among the Hindoos, and 
a very rapid sketch of the moral state of 
those who have lived and died under the 
full influence of these theories. 

Three of the six schools of philosophy 
once famous in India, were atheistical. 
The doctrines of these atheists were esta- 
blished for a consideMble period in In- 
dia, and they are still taught in the sys- 
tems which prevail throughout China, 
Japan, the Burman Empire, Siam, Cey- 
lon, &c. What an awful thought. Sir, 
that three hundred miUions of the human 
race are, to this hour, under a system of 
avowed atheism ! 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 

No person has been found wicked 
enough to maintain that atheism is as 
good as Christianity; and therefore we 
have here no opponents ; — but a view of 
the speculations of the Hindoo theists 
will unfold a system little better, I pre- 
sume, than atheism. 

These philosophers, of whom Vedvas, 
the compiler of the vedu, was one of the 
most distinguished, taught*, that every 
thing we can see, or form any conception 
of, is to be referred to one or the other of 
these two principles : it is either spirit 
or matter^ since, besides these, nothing 
else exists; that all spirit is God; that 
God exists without attributes in a state 
of eternal repose, intangible, unconnected 
with any of the forms of matter. A 
state of profound sleep, in which the in- 
dividual has no mental exercise whatever, 
and the state of the unruffled ocean, are 
alluded to by this philosopher as em- 
blems of the state and blessedness of spi- 
rit. Speculations like these, making 
known a Being without attributes and 
having no connexion with creatures, is 
surely nothing better than pure atheism ; 
nor is the practical system founded on 
these theories an atom better than the 
theory. 

* See the Vedantu-Saru. 



44 ON THE RESTRICTED PROGRESS 

These philosophers further teach, that 
the spirit in man is individuated deity; 
that in this connexion with matter, spirit 
is degraded and imprisoned; that the 
great and only business of man on earth is 
to seek emancipation, and return to the 
blessed source from which he (that is, 
spirit, for I, thou, and he, are referable 
only to spirit) has been severed. 

'rhe mode of obtaining emancipation, 
is by the practice of the ceremonies de- 
nominated jogue, all which ceremonies 
are connected with bodily austerities, 
having for their object the annihilation 
of all conscious connexion with the body 
and with material things. Deliverance 
from the influence of the body and all ma- 
terial things will leave spirit, even while 
in the body, in a state of divine tran- 
quillity, resembling that of God, for the 
passions alone are the sources of pain ; 
and will fit the individuated spirit for 
re-union to God, for the passions are the 
sources of life and death, and confine the 
individuated spirit to a continued course 
of transmigration, and rivet its union to 
matter. 

And now comes a long list of these 
jogees, exhibited to us as practising these 
austerities, which are intended to extin- 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 

guish all attachments, all desires, all che- 
rished union between the spirit and the 
body, and between the spirit and the ma- 
terial existences with which it is sur- 
rounded. We see these jogees retiring 
to forests, renouncing all communion 
with other beings, living in solitude and 
silence, inflicting on the body the most 
shocking austerities, and increasing them 
as the body is able to bear them, till the 
poor wretch sinks under the experiment. 
No doubt, myriads have thus perished. 

I have asked bramhuns, at different 
times, whether any such jogees now 
existed. They have acknowledged, that 
they never saw any, but at the same time 
have avowed their belief, that such might 
be found in the forests. I have heard 
of one jogee who is said to have been 
found, some years ago, in almost an inani- 
mate state, by a rich Hindoo, in the Sun- 
derbunds. This Hindoo brought the jogee 
to Calcutta, and kept him in his own 
house for some time. He performed no reli- 
gious ceremonies ; he never asked for food 
or any thing else ; had no choice nor pre- 
ference of any thing ; was indifferent to 
every outward object : all that could be 
said of his union to material things was, 
that he breathed the same air with others. 



46 ON THE RESTRICTED PROGBESS 

Some licentious young men attempted, 
in various wajs, to awaken his passions ; 
but in vain. The rich Hindoo became 
at length tired of his guest : and, as he 
was going a journey to Benares, he re- 
solved to take the jogee with him, and 
leave him there. On the way he remain- 
ed in the same state of absorption ; till 
one evening, when the boat was brought 
to for the night, he was observed to be 
walking by the side of the Ganges, when 
he met a jogee like himself: they smiled 
at each other, and immediately both be- 
came invisible. 

The speculations I have alluded to 
in this letter, form the belief of all the 
Hindoos; and there are still a number of 
mendicants in India who imitate the 
jogees. The people at large do not be- 
come jogees, because these austerities are 
incompatible with the existence of hu- 
man society; but they make constant al- 
lusions to this doctrine of spirit; to the 
subjugation of the passions, and to trans- 
migration, as inevitably attaching to men, 
till perfect abstraction and absorption are 
obtained. 

Amongst the religious mendicants, the 
mimicry of jogeeism manifests itself in a 
variety of shapes i — here comes a man 



OF CHRISTIANTY. 47 

having a tiger's skin thrown over his 
shoulders : in the dress of a forest resident 
he is aware th^t he has access to the 
heart of a Hindoo, and that by this means, 
he can open the hand of charity. An- 
other mendicant from the same motives, 
professes to have made a vow of perpe- 
tual silence : the villagers crowd around 
him, and present to him milk, sweet- 
meats, rice, &c. With such a proximity 
to the jogee he is sure not to starve, al- 
though he dare ask for nothing. I have 
seen several individuals of the order of 
Oorduvahoos, having the right arm stiff 
and withered, raised above the head, and 
unable to lower it. Such a devotee, ^ 
with his long hair, clotted with mud, tied 
round his head like a turban, with his 
emaciated and vacant face, rendered still 
more dismal by being besmeared with 
ashes, and with his body nearly naked, 
exhibits one of the most pitiable sights 
on earth. The Asiatic researches con- 
tain an account and an engraving of an 
ascetic who constantly lay on a bed of 
spikes. I once saw at Calcutta two Hin- 
doos, each of whom had surrounded him- 
self with three large wood fires, so near 
to his body as almost to scorch him, while 



48 ON THE RESTRICTED PROGRESS 

the vertical sun beat upon his bare head. 
Each day was passed in the practice of 
these austerities; and it was said, that 
these men remained up to the neck in 
the Ganges during a considerable part 
of the night. They thus exposed them- 
selves to the greatest degree of heat and 
cold they could endure, to dry up all the 
juices of the body, and to annihilate all 
sensible connexion between spirit and 
matter, that they might be prepared for 
absorption into the ocean of spirit. Some 
modern jogees go without clothes, to hold 
up the idea that they are destitute of 
passions. And the names by which two 
large bodies of mendicants are distin- 
guished, are intended to convey the same 
impression, viz. voiragee, from voi, desti- 
tute of, and raag, passion ; sunyasee^ from 
soonyu^ destitute of, and asu^ desire. 

And these, my dear brother, are the 
highest discoveries, and these the proud- 
est fruits, of a philosophy produced by 
the greatest unassisted minds that were 
ever produced. All these combinations 
of intellect, all these colleges, founded by 
the greatest masters the world has ever 
seen; all these writings and incredible 
labours, terminate in this momentous 



THE HINDOOS. 49 

discovery, "There is nothing but spirit* 
and matter in the universe"— in the 
production of this disciple, dumb, naked, 
besmeared with ashes, his arm held erect 
till it has become stiff and withered, sur- 
rounding himself with four fires, or lying 
on a bed of spikes, endeavouring, by all 
this process, to extinguish his intellectual 
powers, that he may be fitted to return to 
a Being whose blessedness consists in an 
eternal destitution of all qualities. 

Such are the effects of this philosophy 
on those who have followed it up to the 
very death. And it is observable, that it 
operates on all the millions who believe 
the theory, but cannot practise it, so as 
to produce entire despair of happiness 
beyond the present life. A bramhun once 
observed to me, that it was impossible, 
so long as a man retained a belly, for him 
to obtain absorption. 

And is not this, to all practical pur- 
poses, a system of atheism ? This God 
of the Hindoo philosophers is not an ob- 
ject of worship; he has nothing to do 

* A celebrated Hindoo writer has acknowledged that all 
which their philosophers had ever written on the Divine nature, 
amounted to nothing better than the conjectures of a number 
of blind men, respecting the form of the elephant ; which they 
endeavoured to ascertain by feeling the body, trunk, ears, 
limbs, and tail of one which had been brought into their vil' 
lage. Acts xvii. 27. 

5 



50 THE PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM, &C. 

with creatures, nor they with him. 
Therefore it is, that among the Hindoos 
(100,000,000) there is not one tetople to 
be found consecrated to the one God. 
Nor do any Hindoos die with the hope 
even of temporary happiness, except 
those who drown or burn themselves 
alive. Here is a system which, dethron- 
ing Jehovah, or, in other words, placing 
Deity in a state of eternal solitude, ele- 
vates man to the godhead, while it dooms 
to infamy every passion of the mind, and 
every action of the body. Was it worth 
while, that so many sages should have 
flourished, that so many books should 
have been written, and so many colleges 
have been erected, to end in results like 
these ? 

Oh ! my dear brother, how grateful 
should we be for the gospel ! Who does 
not recognise it, especially when con- 
trasted with human systems, as " the glo- 
rious gospel of the blessed God ?'' 

May you be long spared, a blessing to 
the American churches, and to the hea- 
then! 

Ever, most truly, yours, 

W. WARD. 



POPULAR SUPERSTITION, &C. 51 



LETTER V. 

To the Rev. Dr. Chaplin, 

Professor of Divinity in the Maine Literary and 
Theological Institution. 

The Hercules^ at sea^ March 30, 1821. 

My Dear Doctor, 

From a pleasing recollection of the dis- 
course which I heard jou deliver at 
North Yarmouth, I indulge the hope, that 
the sentiments disclosed in these letters 
will not be offensive to you. It is to be 
deplored that so few of our ministers 
fully preach the gospel, pleading with 
and pressing sinners to embrace it, as the 
puritans did, and did with such distin- 
guished success. Dr. Chalmers, in a ser- 
mon I heard him preach at Glasgow in 
June last, from " Good-will to men," gave 
a fine specimen of what preaching these 
glad tidings should be. False Calvinism 
has done incalculable mischief where it 
has not actually carried men into antino- 
mianism. How often has it placed minis- 
ters where they have become the very 
antipodes of the Saviour. They glory in 
confining the preaching of the gospel to 



52 THE POPULAR SUPERSTITION OP 

the very minutest fragment of the human 
race, instead of pressing it upon the ac- 
ceptance of every creature within their 
reach. 

On landing in Bengal, in the year 1793, 
our brethren found themselves surround- 
ed with a population of heathens (not in- 
cluding the Mahometans) amounting to at 
least one hundred millions of souls. 

On the subject of the divine nature, 
with the verbal admission of the doctrine 
of the divine unity, they heard these ido- 
laters speak of 330,000,000 of gods. 
Amidst innumerable idol temples, they 
found none erected for the worship of the 
one living and true God. Services with- 
out end they saw performed in honour of 
the elements and deified heroes, but heard 
not one voice tuned to the praise or em- 
ployed in the service of the one God. Un- 
acquainted with the moral perfections of 
Jehovah, they saw this immense popula- 
tion prostrate before dead matter, before 
the monkey, the serpent, before idols the 
very personifications of sin; and they 
found this animal, this reptile, and the 
lecher Krishnu and his concubine Radha, 
among the favourite deities of the Hin- 
doos. All these millions in prostrate ho- 
mage before the instrument of the fall, 



THE HINDOOS. 53 

here called Ununtu, ihe everlastiag, — be- 
fore sin, deified in the persons of an infa- 
mous lecher and his concubine ! Lower 
than this, human reason cannot fall, the 
human being cannot be precipitated. 
In this worship, do we not perceive put 
forth the utmost malice of the powers of 
darkness ? And can we not imagine that 
when the news of this consummation of 
the triumph over man was carried to the 
Stjgian council — 

" The hollow abyss 
Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell, 
With deaf 'ning shout, return'd the loud acclaim ?" 

To one hundred millions of men in such 
a state of deplorable ignorance and alien- 
ation from God, was it not of the last con- 
sequence, that the glorious nature of the 
true God, whom to know is life eternal, 
should be made known? 

On further inquiry, they found, that this 
immense population had no knowledge 
whatever of the divine government; that 
they supposed the world to be placefl un- 
der the management of beings, ignorant, 
capricious, and wicked; that the three prin- 
cipal deities, the creator, the preserver, 
and the destroyer, having no love of right- 
eousness, nor any settled rules of govern- 
* 



54 THE POPULAR SUPERSTITION OF 

V 

ment, were often quarrelling amongst 
each other, and subverting one ano- 
ther's arrangements ; and that, amongst 
330,000,000 of governors, the governed 
knew not whom to obey, nor in whom to 
confide. Now, to a christian mind, hav- 
ing before it the vicissitudes, afflictions, 
and difficulties of the present state, no- 
thing can appear more deplorable than 
this ignorance of the Divine government, 
nothing more desirable than some cor- 
rect knowledge of that wisdom, goodness, 
and power, which is exercised in the go- 
vernment of the world. 

They found that this people were 
equally ignorant of the law of God; that 
the injunctions of their shastru were often 
contradictory,not unfrequently command- 
ing services puerile and vicious, and were 
rather a transcript of the blind and cor- 
rupted heart of man than of the Divine 
nature; and that these people had no 
idea of sin as connected with a disposi- 
tion different from the mind of God, and 
as a moral evil If the knowledge of his 
spiritual state be of more importance to 
man than all other acquirements, and if 
" by the law is the knowledge of sin," 
then surely it was of the utmost conse- 
quence to all these millions, that to them 



THE HINDOOS. 55 

should be made known the holy princi- 
ples of that government under which all 
mankind are placed. 

Our brethren found that through their 
ignorance of the Divine law, of the cor- 
ruption of the heart, and of the deep tur- 
pitude of sin, these people imagined that 
the waters of the Ganges had virtue 
enough in them to purify the mind from 
its earthly stains ; and hence they saw the 
whole population residing in its neigh- 
bourhood, morning and evening crowding 
to the river; they saw this holy water 
carried for religious uses to the most dis- 
tant parts, and the djing hurried in their 
last moments to receive their last purifi- 
cation in the sacred stream. Under the 
delusion, that sin is to be removed by the 
merit of works, they observed others un- 
dertaking long and dangerous pilgrimages 
in which thousands perished ; while 
others were seen inflicting on their bodies 
the most dreadful tortures, and others 
were sitting through the day and through 
the year, repeating the names of their 
guardian deities. Who can contemplate 
mistakes like these, terminating in ever- 
lasting disappointment, without perceiv- 
ing the wisdom and benevolence of the 
command, " preach the gospel to every 



56 THE POPULAR SUPERSTITION OF 

creature," and point all to " the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the 
world." 

Respecting the real nature of the pre- 
sent state, the missionaries perceived 
that the Hindoos laboured under the 
most fatal misapprehensions ; that they 
believed the good or evil actions of this 
birth were not produced as the volitions 
of their own wills, but arose from, and 
were the unavoidable results of, the ac- 
tions of the past birth ; that their present 
actions w^ould inevitably give rise to the 
whole complexion of their characters and 
conduct in the following birth; and that 
thus they were doomed to interminable 
transmigrations, to float as some light 
substance upon the bosom of an irresisti- 
ble torrent. To a people like these 
poor Hindoos, " without hope," how ne- 
cessary the messages of mercy, the in- 
vitations, and promised succours of the 
gospel. 

Amongst these idolaters no bibles 
were found ; no sabbaths; no congregat- 
ing for religious instruction in any form; 
no house for God ; no God but a log of 
wood, or a monkey; no Saviour but the 
Ganges; no worship but that paid to abo- 
minable idols, and that connected with 



THE HINDOOS. 57 

(dances, songs, and unutterable impuri» 
ties; so that what should have been di- 
vine worship, purifying, elevating, and 
carrying the heart to heaven, was a cor- 
rupt but rapid torrent, poisoning the soul 
and carrying it down to perdition; no 
morality, for how^ should a people be mo- 
ral, whose gods are monsters of vice; 
whose priests are their ringleaders in 
crime; whose scriptures encourage pride, 
impurity, falsehood, revenge, and mur- 
der ; whose worship is connected with 
indescribable abominations, and whose 
heaven is a brothel? As might be ex- 
pected, they found that men died here 
without indulging the smallest vestige of 
hope, except what can arise from transmi- 
gration, the hope, instead of plunging 
into some place of misery, of passing into 
the body of some reptile.— -To carry to 
such a people the divine word, to call 
them together for sacred instruction, to 
introduce amongst them a pure and hea- 
venly worship, and to lead them to the 
observance of a sabbath on earth, as the 
preparative and prelude to a state of end- 
less perfection, was surely a work worthy 
for a Saviour to command, and becoaiing 
a christian people to attempt. 



58 THE POPULAR SUPERSTITION OF 

But, finally, our brethren found, that 
the ideas of these heathens respecting a 
future state were equally erroneous and 
pernicious with those already stated. By 
a future state, they perceived that a Hin- 
doo commonly understands nothing more 
than transmigration; and that he dies with 
the expectation of immediately rising to 
birth again in some other bodv — in *hat 
of a dog, or a cat, or a worm feeding on 
ordure: that if he has committed some 
dreadful crime, he expects to fall, for a 
time, into some one of the dreadful states 
of torment described in the shastrii. 
They discovered, that no Hindoo, ex- 
cept he has given all his wealth to the 
priests, or has performed some other act 
of splendid merit; or except be drown 
himself in a sacred river, or perish on the 
funeral pile, has the least hope of happi- 
ness after death. Those who are sup- 
posed to attain happiness, are said to as- 
cend to the heavens of the gods, where, 
for a limited period, they enjoy an un- 
bounded indulgence in sensual gratifica- 
tion. This is the holy heaven of con- 
scious bliss held out to a Hindoo, and held 
out to him on conditions which the great 
bulk of the people find to be impractica- 
ble. The state beyond this, reserved exclu- 



THE HINDOOS. 59 

sively for jogees, is absorption, or a com- 
plete loss of separate existence in union 
to the soul of the world. How important 
to pour into the lap of all these millions, 
living without God, and without Christ, 
and without hope, the unsearchable riches 
of Christ ; to carry to them the news of 
life and immortality, that they may pos- 
sess that hope which is as an anchor to 
the soul, both sure and steadfast, and 
which is the source of a purification ter- 
minating in everlasting perfection ! 

To all the friends whom I had the plea- 
sure of seeing at North Yarmouth and 
Portland, I beg very affectionately to be 
remembered. 

May the college over which you pre- 
side, my dear Doctor, become a vast 
blessing to the churches in that part of 
your union ! 

Ever indeed, yours, 

W, WARD. 



60 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

LETTER Vr. 

To Miss Hope, of Liverpool. 

The Hercules^ at sea^ March 31, 1 B21. 

My Dear Friend, 

No person will charge me with hav- 
ing fallen into an error in addressing this 
letter to you. I have only to ask your for- 
giveness for not having mentioned my de- 
sign to you before these letters appeared 
in print. 

I am very anxious to have awakened in 
the minds of benevolent females in Bri- 
tain and America, that concern for their 
sex in India, which will ultimately secure 
an amelioration of their condition. Why 
should not this subject be taken up with 
the same simultaneous feeling among fe- 
males in these countries, as the Bible So- 
ciety has been by both sexes all over the 
world ? Are the females in Asia, who, 
by their want of education, are lost to 
themselves, to their families, to society, 
and to Christianity, too small a body, to 
call for a female association in their 
favour in every considerable town 
throughout Britain and America ? They 



IN INDIA. 



61 



cannot amount to less than Seventy-five 
millions of minds. Are their sufferings too 
trifling to demand such an enlarged at- 
tention } 

A description of the state of women in 
Hindoost'han will supply an answer to 
this last question : 

The anxiety of the Hindoo to obtain a 
son who may present the funeral offer- 
ings, upon the presentation of which he 
supposes his future happiness to depend, 
and the expenses attending the support 
and marriage of girls, makes the birth of 
a female in a Hindoo family an unwel- 
come event : hence the sex in India come 
into the world frowned upon by their 
own parents and relations. No favoura- 
ble prognostic this of future comforts. 

I ought here to mention the case of fe- 
male children among the rajpoots ; for 
though this relation belongs only to one 
of the Hindoo tribes, it exhibits a strong 
corroborative proof of the low estimation 
in which even the lives of females are held 
in India. One of the families of the raj- 
poots, it is said, began this practice of 
butchering their female children, to pre- 
vent the fulfilment of a prediction, that, 
through a female, the succession to the 
crown would pass out of the family. All 
6 



62 STATE OP' FEMALE SOCIETY 

the tribe has since followed the royal ex- 
ample ; and now not one female child sur- 
vives : the parents, it is believed, are 
themselves the murderers. The bojs 
marry in the tribe next in rank to them. 
And does no mother ever interpose her 
tender entreaties to spare her daughter ? 
" Can a woman forget her sucking child, 
that she should not have compassion on 
the infant of her womb ?*' Oh ! what need 
of the enlightening and softening influ- 
ences of the gospel, where mothers have 
become monsters — have sunk below the 
wolf and the tiger. Through what un- 
known, unheard of process must the fe- 
male heart have passed, thus to have lost 
all its wonted tenderness ; thus to have 
laid hold of a nature not found any where 
else upon earth ;* found only in the de- 
scription of the poet— 

'' The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair ; 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
Voluminous and vast ; a serpent arm'd 
With mortal sting." 

While in India, a bramhun from one of 
the Western provinces gave me this rela- 
tion : — A rajpoot, for some unassigned 

* See the cow butting with her horns, and threatening the 
person who dares to approach her offspring. See woman in In- 
dia (at Saugur island) throwing her living child into the out- 
■^ftretcb'djaws of the alligator ! 



IN INDIA. 63 

reasons, spared liis female child ; which 
grew up in the father's house to the age 
in which girls in India are married. The 
sight of a girl, however, in the house of a 
rajpoot, was so novel, and so contrary to 
the customs of the tribe, that no parent 
sought her in marriage for his son. The 
father, sufTering under the frowns of his 
own tribe, and trembling for the chastity 
of his daughter and the honour of his fa- 
mily, was driven into a state of frenzy, 
and in this state, taking his daughter 
aside, he actually put an end to her exis- 
tence. 

To the Hindoo female all education is 
denied by the positive injunction of the 
shastru, and by the general voice of the 
population. Not a single school for girls, 
therefore, all over the country! With 
knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting, 
music, and drawing, they have no more 
to do than with letters : the washing is 
done by men of a particular tribe. The 
Hindoo girl, therefore, spends the ten first 
years of her life in sheer idleness, immur« 
ed in the house of her father. 

Before she has attained to this age, 
however, she is sought after by the ghu- 
tuks, men employed by parents to seek 
wives for their sons. She is betrothed 



64 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

without her consent, a legal agreement 
which binds her for life, being made by 
the parents on both sides while she is jet 
a child. 

At a time most convenient to the pa- 
rents, this bo J and girl are brought toge- 
ther for the first time, and the marriage 
ceremony is performed ; after which she 
returns to the house of her father. 

Before the marriage is consummated, 
in many instances, the boy dies, and this 
girl becomes a widow ; and as the law 
prohibits the marriage of widows, she is 
doomed to remain in this state as long as 
she lives. The greater number of these 
unfortunate beings become a prey to the 
seducer, and a disgrace to their famihes. 
Not long since, a bride, on the day the 
marriage ceremony was to have been per- 
formed, was burnt on the funeral pile with 
the dead body of the bridegroom, at 
Chandernagore, a few miles north of 
Calcutta. Concubinage, to a most awful 
extent, is the fruit of these marriages 
without choice. What a sum of misery 
is attached to the lot of woman in India 
before she has attained even her fifteenth 
year! 

In some cases as many as fidy females, 
the daughters of so many Hindoos, are gi- 



tN INDIA. 65 

ven in marriage to one bramhun, iii order 
to make these families something more 
respectable, and that the parents may be 
able to say, we are allied by marriage to 
the kooleens, the highest rank of bram- 
huns. In what kind of estimation must 
females be held in a country where, in 
numerous instances, twenty, thirty, and 
even fifty of them are sacrificed to pro- 
mote the honour of the family ? These 
females are doomed to a kind of widow- 
hood, and to a life of infamy, for they ne- 
ver live with their husbands ; and there 
have been cases, in which several have 
been burnt in the same pile with the body 
of this nominal husband ; — no doubt for 
the honour of the family. 

Supposing, however, that the Hindoo 
female is happily married, she remains a 
prisoner and a slave in the house of her 
husband. She knows nothing of the ad- 
vantages of a liberal intercourse with 
mankind. She is not permitted to speak 
to a person of the other sex, if she belong 
to a respectable family, except to old 
men very nearly allied in blood : she re- 
tires at the appearance of a male guest. 
She never eats with her husband, but 
partakes of what he leaves. She receives 
no benefit from books, nor from society ? 
6* 



6Q STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

and though the Hindoos do not affirm* 
with some Mahometans, that females have 
no souls, they treat them as though this 
was their belief. What companions for 
their husbands — what mothers these! — 
Yes,- it is not females alone who are the 
sufferers : while such is the mental con- 
dition of the sex, of how much happiness 
must husbands, children, and society at 
large be deprived ! What must be the 
state of that country, where female mind, 
and the female presence.* are things un- 
known ? 

This vacuity of thought, these habits of 
indolence, and this total want of informa- 
tion, of principles, and of society, leave 
the Hindoo female an easy prey to seduc- 
tion, and the devoted slave of superstition. 
Faithfulness to marriage-vows is almost 
unknown in India ; and, where the man- 
ners of the East allow of it, the famales 
manifest a more enthusiastic attachment 
to the superstitions of the country than 
even the men. The religious mendicants, 
the priests, and the public shows preserve 
an overwhelming influence over the fe- 
male mind. Many become mendicants; 
and some undertake long pilgrimages. In 
short, the power of superstition over the 

* The low#t orders of females alone are seen in numbers In 
the streets. 



IN INDIA. brf 

female in India has no parallel in any 
other country : — 

III what other part of the world could 
sixteen females be found, in a state of 
perfect health, plunging with one consent 
into a watery grave, under a religious im- 
pulse ? The progress of this extraordi- 
nary immolation, as described by Captain 
, a spectator, exhibits a determi- 
nation in the work of self-murder, which is 
most extraordinary. These sixteen fe- 
males, accompanied by as many priests, 
went in boats on the river opposite Alla- 
habad, and proceeded to the spot where 
the Ganges and the Jumna, two sacred ri- 
vers, unite their purifying streams. Each 
victim had a large earthen pan slung over 
each shoulder. She descended over the 
side of the boat into the river, and was 
then held up by a priest till she had fill- 
ed the pans from the river, when the 
priest let go his hold, and the pans drag- 
ged her to the bottom. And thus died, 
amidst the applauses of the spectators, 
and assisted by the priests of the country, 
sixteen females, as a single offering to the 
demon of destruction. They died under 
the firm persuasion that this was the di- 
rect way to heaven ! The priests enjoy- 
ed the scene, and spoke of it to their 



68 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

friends as a pleasnnt morning gambol. 
We have here no weepers; no remon- 
strants ; no youth interposing to save them 
to society. They go down to the bottom, 
as loose stones which have no adhesion 
to the quarry, as creatures for which so- 
ciety has no use, Nor must you suppose, 
my dear friend, that this is a solitary in- 
stance : these immolations are so com- 
mon, that they excite very little anxiety 
indeed at Allahabad, and beyond that 
city they are scarcely mentioned. 

But the awful state of female society 
in this miserable country appears in no- 
thing so much as in dooming the female, 
the widow, to be burnt alive with the 
putrid carcass of her husband. The 
Hindoo legislators have sanctioned this 
immolation, showing herein a studied 
determination to insult and degrade wo- 
man. She is, therefore, in the first 
instance, deluded into this act by the 
writings of these bramhuns; in which 
also she is promised, that if she will offer 
herself, for the benefit of her husband^ 
on the funeral pile, she shall, by the ex- 
traordinary merit of this action, rescue 
her husband from misery, and take him 
and fourteen generations of his and her 
family with her to heaven, where she 



IN INDIA. 69 

shall enjoy with them celestial happiness 
until fourteen kings of the gods shall 
have succeeded to the throne of heaven z 
(that is, millions of years !) Thus en- 
snared, she embraces this dreadful death. 
I have seen three widows, at different 
times, burnt alive ; and had repeated 
opportunities of being present at similar 
immolations, but my courage failed me. 

The funeral pile consists of a quantity 
of faggots laid on the earth, rising in 
height about three feet from the ground, 
about four feet wide, and six feet in 
If^ngth. After the female has declared 
her resolution to ' eat fire,' as the people 
call it, she leaves her house for the last 
time, accompanied by her children, rela- 
tions, and a few neighbours. She pro- 
ceeds to the river, where a priest attends 
upon her, and where certain ceremonies 
are performed, accompanied with ablu- 
tions. These over, she comes up to the 
pile, which may be ten yards from the 
brink of the river. She walks around 
the pile several times, scattering parched 
corn, &c. as she goes round, and at length 
lays herself down on the pile by the dead 
body, laying her arm over it. Two cords 
having been laid across the pile, and un- 
der the dead body, with these cords the 



70 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

dead body and the living body are now 
tied fast together. A large quantity of 
faggots are then laid upon the bodies, and 
two levers are brought over the pile to 
press down the widow, and prevent her 
from escaping when the flames begin to 
scorch her. Her eldest son, averting his 
face, with a lighted torch in his hand, 
then sets fire to the pile. The drums are 
immediately sounded, which with the 
shouts of the mob, effectually drown the 
shrieks of the widow surrounded by the 
flames. 

There are a number of circumstances, 
connecting themselves with these butch- 
eries, which plainly point out to us the 
infamously base feelings of this people, 
from their rulers downwards, towards 
women. For instance, the widow is first 
told that there remains no higher duty to 
a faithful widow than to burn with her 
husband. 2. They next hold out to her 
promises of immense happiness, as well 
as the deliverance of her husband and all 
these relations from torments, and eleva- 
tion to the same happiness. 3. Some wi- 
dows are placed under a fatal necessity 
of giving up their lives, as their unfeeling 
parents have married them in families in 
which widows are always burnt. 4. All 



IN INDIA. 71 

the motives urged for her burning meet 
her in the height of her first anguish for 
the loss of her husband : time is not al- 
lowed to deliberate. 5. In the test which 
these wretches sometimes demand from a 
widow, that she will not disappoint them 
by shrinking at the sight of the pile, we 
further see how utterly destitute the Hin- 
doos are of all respect for the sex : — They 
put a lamp in her hand, and demand that 
she shall hold her finger in the flame till 
it is nearly burnt to a cinder. 6. If she 
have an infant, and on this account is in- 
terdicted from burning, a male relation 
never fails to come forward, and rather 
than that she shall not burn, engages to 
maintain the child. 7. The law does not 
authorize the use of cords or levers; but 
the present race of Hindoos are deter- 
mined to secure their victim. 8. That 
part of the ceremony which compels her 
to walk deliberately and repeatedly round 
the pile, appears to have been invent- 
ed on purpose to aggravate her mise- 
ry. One of the widows, whose immola- 
tion I witnessed, was obliged to be sup- 
ported as she walked round the pile. 
9. It is also very remarkable, that the 
eldest son, almost always the child to 
whom the mother is most attached, is 



72 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

selected as the executioiiei*. 10. The 
law allows her to recant, even at the pile; 
but the widow never enjoys the benefit of 
it; she knows that her death is determin- 
ed on, after the public avowal of her de- 
termination to burn. 11. And finalij, the 
drums, the shouts, and the diabolical ea- 
gerness, with which the natives, especial- 
ly the bramhuns, go into this horrible 
work, bear the most decided testimony 
how utterly destitute these idolaters are 
of all proper feelings toward the sex. 

It is urged, that these are voluntary 
immolations; if it is meant that no out- 
w^ard brutal force is used, I allow that in 
this sense they are voluntary. But in 
what other country under heaven would 
they be allowed to burn? Where are 
men, except in India, to be found, who 
would not use force to prevent these im- 
molations.^ Rut has not all knowledge 
been denied to the Hindoo female ; and 
have not their minds been shockingly 
perverted by superstition ? Can a child, 
in the same sense as an adult, be called 
a free agent ? To show, however, that 
a certain kind of force is sometimes used, 
we may state the case of a female not 
long n^-^' rescued from the funeral pile 
by MrSc Julius, then in India. The pile 



IN INDIA. 73 

had been already lighted, and the shoul- 
der of the victim was scorched by the 
flame. This widow declared, after her 
rescue, that before she went to the pile, 
some intoxicating drug had been admi- 
nistered to her, which had rendered her 
perfectly insensible. The Hindoo law on 
these immolations interdicts the applica- 
tion of any such drugs, a provision which 
would not have been made, had not the 
Hindoos always been disposed to treat 
females in this manner. 

The burying alive of widows manifests, 
if that were possible, a still more abomi- 
nable state of feeling towards women 
than the burning them alive. The wea- 
vers bury their dead. When therefore 
a widow of this tribe is deluded into the 
determination not to survive her husband, 
she is buried alive with the dead body. 
In this kind of immolation the children 
and relations dig the grave. After cer- 
tain ceremonies have been attended to, 
the poor widow arrives, and is let down 
into the pit. She sits in the centre, tak- 
ing the dead body on her lap, and encir- 
cling it with her arms. These relations 
now begin to throw in the soil ; and after 
a short space, two of them descend into 
the grave, and tread the earth firmly 
7 



74 STATE OF FEBIALE SOCIETY 

round the body of the widow. She sits 
a calm and unremonstrating spectator of 
the horrid process. She sees the earth 
rising higher and higher around her, 
without upbraiding her murderers, or 
making the least effort to arise, and make 
her escape. At length the earth reaches 
her lips, — covers her head. The rest of 
the earth is then hastily thrown in, and 
these children and relations mount the 
grave, and tread down the earth upon 
the head of the suffocating widow — the 
mother ! — Why, my dear friend, the life 
of the vilest brute that walks upon the 
earth is never taken away by a process 
so slow, so deliberate, so diabolical as 
this. And this is the state of your sex in 

British India ! In how many situations, 

where we expected it not, are we remind- 
ed of the testimony of the Divine word ; 
in every part of the heathen world, in 
the miserable state of woman, what a 
confirmation of the denunciation, " To 
the woman he said, I will greatly multi- 
ply thy sorrow." Gen. iii. 16. 

Ah ! my dear Miss Hope ! shall I not 
hear, after my return to India, that the 
females of Britain* and America have 



* To the lady of Captain Pudner, of Liverpool, my fair 



IN INDIA. 



75 



united to make the case of their sex ia 
India a common cause — the cause of wo- 
man — but especially of every christian 
widow — of every christian mother — of 
every christian female? Will you not, 
females of Britain and America! imitate 
the noble example of Col. Walker, and 
rescue those rajpoot female infants ? Will 
you not follow the footsteps of Mrs. Ju- 
lius, and deliver these females, doomed 
to a horrible death by usages which have 
been long devoted to endless execration ? 
Will you not become the guardians of 
these ten thousand orphans surrounding 
these funeral piles, and endeavouring to 
put out these fires with their tears ? By 
an official statement, which I brought 
with me from India, it appears, that every 
year more than seven hundred women 
(more probably fourteen hundred) are 
burnt or buried alive in the Presidency 
of Bengal alone. How many in the other 
parts of India ? Your sex will not say, 
that in the roasting alive of four widows 
every day there is not blood enough shed 
to call forth their exertions. Seventy-five 



countrywomen are indebted for an example in reference to 
Hindoo female education, which I hope will attract universal 
imitation, as it deserves and will doubtless receive universal 
commendation. 



76 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY 

millions offemales in Hindoost'han, frown- 
ed upon in their birth, denied all educa- 
tion, and exposed to a thousand miseries 
unknown among females in christian 
countries, have surely a claim tender 
enough, powerful enough, to awaken all 
the female sensibility of Britain and Ame- 
rica. — Let the females of the United 
Kingdom speak, and they must be heard. 
Let the females of both countries give the 
means of affording education to their sex 
in India — and these infants must be sav- 
ed; these fires must be put out; these 
graves must be closed for ever. By such 
an interposition, so worthy of the sex in 
these countries, the females in India will 
be blessed with all that profusion of pri- 
vileges which women in christian coun- 
tries enjoy; and, being thus blessed, will 
become the light, the shade, and the 
ornament of India. One or two Hindoo 
females, in spite of every interdiction, 
have claimed the rights of their sex to the 
cultivation of their powers; and there 
can be no doubt but that India will, at 
no distant period, speak with raptures of 
her female moral writers, her poets, and 
her teachers; of her Moores and Frys, 
who will lay all their honours at the feet 



IN INDIA. 77 

of Him who is the Desire of all nations, 
and in whom alone they can be blessed. 
Who will say, that the gospel is not 
wanted here to adopt and instruct these 
thousands of orphans, and to make the 
female, the widow's heart sing for joy ? 
How sweet is that voice to my ear which 
says, " Let every creature hear my gos- 
pel." 

Permit me to remain, 

My dear Friend, 
With great respect, 
Your most obliged humble servant, 
W. WARD. 






78 IMMOLATIONS 



LETTER VII. ll 

To the Rev. Dr. Steadman, of Bradford. 

The Hercules, at sea, Jpril 2, 1821. 
My Dear Brother, 

Amongst a thousand tender and grate- 
ful recollections which, if spared, I hope 
to carry back with me to India, scarcely 
any name will be more welcome to my 
feelings than yours. And many a chris- 
tian, and many a church, in England will 
preserve the remembrance of Steadman 
long after I shall be laid with Pitiimbur- 
sing, Futik, and others, in the burymg- 
ground at Serampore. 

In the two preceding letters, I have at- 
tempted to describe the deplorable igno- 
rance of the Hindoos, and the state of fe- 
male society in Hindoost'han. I wish 
now to add some account of the cruelties 
to which the superstitions of the East 
subject its inhabitants. 

f am not aware how long the tribe of 
rajpoots have been in the practice of put- 
ting to death their female offspring. It 
must have arisen at the time the Hindoo 
monarchs of this tribe reigned in Western 



IN INDIA. 79 

India. A few children were saved by 
the benevolent efforts of Col. Walker 
when in India; but since his return, the 
very families among whom the horrible 
practice had ceased, have again returned 
to the work of murder; not one survives. 
I have this from the highest authority. 
And I have just learned, that in and 
around Benares, infanticide is practised 
to a horrible extent. 

Instigated by the demon of supersti- 
tion, many mothers, in fulfilment of a vow 
entered into for the purpose of procuring 
the blessing of children, drown their first- 
born in the Brumhu-pootru, and other 
rivers in India. When the child is two 
or three years old, the mother takes it to 
the river, encourages it to enter, as though 
about to bathe it, but suffers it to pass in- 
to the midst of the current, when she 
abandons it, and stands an inactive 
spectator, beholding the struggles, and 
hearing the screams, of her perishing in- 
fant. At Saugur island, formerly, mo- 
thers were seen casting their living ofl^ 
spring amongst a number of alligators, 
and standing to gaze at these monsters 
quarrelling for their prey, beholding the 
writhing infant in the jaws of the success- 
ful animal, and standing motionless while 



80 IMMOLATIONS 

it was breaking the bones and sucking 
the blood of the poor innocent ! What 
must be that superstition, which can thus 
transform a being, whose distinguishing 
quahty is tenderness, into a monster more 
unnatural than the tiger prowling through 
the forest for its prey ! 

At the annual festival in honour of Mii- 
ha-Dev (the great god,) many persons are 
suspended in the air, by large hooks 
thrust through the integuments of the 
back, and swung round for a quarter of 
an hour, in honour of this deity, i have 
seen these poor wretches go through this, 
and the following ceremony, more than 
once. Others have their sides pierced, 
and cords are introduced between the 
skin and the ribs, and drawn backwards 
and forwards, while these victims of su- 
perstition dance through the streets. I 
have seen others cast themselves from a 
stage ten feet from the ground upon open 
knives inserted in packs of cotton. Some- 
times one of these knives enters the bo- 
dy, and the poor wretch is carried off to 
expire. At the same festival, numbers 
have a hole cut through the middle of the 
tongue, in which they insert a stick, a 
ram-rod, or any thin substance, and thus 
dance through the streets, in honour of 



IN INDIA. 81 

the same deity. At the close of the festi- 
val, these devotees dance on burning 
coals, their feet being uncovered. 

Thousands of Hindoos enter upon pil- 
grimages to famous temples, to consecrat- 
ed pools, to sacred rivers, to forests ren- 
dered sacred as the retreats of ancient 
sages, to places remarkable for some na- 
tural phenomena, &c. &;c. These pil- 
grimages are attended with the greatest 
fatigue and deprivations ; frequently with 
starvation, disease, and premature death. 
Hundreds are supposed to perish on 
these journeys ; and some of these 
places, the resort of pilgrims, become 
frightful cemeteries ; to one of which, 
Jugiinnat'h, in Orissa, Dr. Buchanan 
has .very properly given the name Gol- 
gotha. — I once saw a man making succes- 
sive prostrations to Jugunnat'h, and thus 
measuring the distance between some 
place in the north, down to the temple of 
Jugunnat'h, which stands nearly at the 
southern extremity of India. 

The Hindoo writings encourage per- 
sons afflicted with incurable distempers 
to put an end to their existence, by cast- 
ing themselves under the wheels of the car 
of Jugunnat'h, or into some sacred river, 
or into a tire prepared for the purpose ; 



82 IMMOLATIONS 

promising such self-murderers, that thej 
shall rise to birth again in a healthful bo- 
dy, whereas, by dying a natural death, 
they would be liable to have the disease 
perpetuated in the next and succeeding 
births. Multitudes of lepers, and other 
children of sorrow, perish annually in 
these prescribed modes. Mr. W. Carey, 
of Cutwa, the second son of Dr. Carey, 
states, that he was one morning informed 
that some people had dug a deep hole in 
the earth, not far from his owii house, and 
had begun to kindle a fire at the bottom. 
He immediately proceeded to the spot, 
and saw a poor leper, who had been de- 
prived of the use of his limbs by the dis- 
ease, roll himself over and over till at last 
he fell into the pit amidst the flames. — 
Smarting with agony, his screams became 
most dreadful. He called upon his fami- 
ly, w^ho surrounded the pit, and entreated 
them to deliver him from the flames. But 
he called in vain. His own sister, seeing 
him lift his hands to the side, and make a 
dreadful effort to escape, pushed him 
back again ; where, these relations still 
coolly gazing upon the sufferer, he perish- 
ed, enduring indescribable agonies. " Oh! 
Lord, remember the covenant, for the 
dark places of the earth are full of the ha- 



IN INDIA. S3 

bltations of cruelty;" that covenant, in 
which the heathen are given to thy Son 
for his inheritance. Every Hindoo, in the 
hour of death, is hurried to the side of the 
Ganges, or some other sacred river, if 
near enough to one of these rivers, where 
he is laid in the agonies of death, exposed 
to the burning sun by day, and to the 
dews and cold of the night. The water 
of the river is poured plentifully down 
him, if he can swallow it ; and his breast, 
forehead, aad arms, are besmeared with 
the mud of the river, (for the very mud of 
the Ganges is supposed to have purifying 
properties.) Just before the soul quits 
the body, he is laid on the earth, and 
then immersed up to the middle in the 
stream, while his relations stand around 
him, tormenting him in these his last mo- 
ments with superstitious rites, and increas- 
ing a hundred fold the pains of dying.— 
Very often, where recovery might be rea- 
sonably hoped for, these barbarous rites 
bring on premature death. It is pretty 
certain, that many private murders, using 
these rites, are perpetrated.— How differ- 
ent the hopes, how strikingly different 
the exit, of a dying christian! What 
a blessed contrast to all this the deaths of 
Pitumbur, of Futik, and of Rughoo !* 

* See a succeeding letter. 



84 IMMOLATIOX. 

Human sacrifices are enjoined in the 
vedu, and certainly made a part of the 
Hindoo superstition in very early times. 
The vedu describes the rites to be ob- 
served at the sacrifice of a man. The 
Kalika pooran declares the degree of me- 
rit attached to such a sacrifice, compared 
with the offering of a goat, a buffalo, &:c. 
The Ramayun, an epic poem, gives the 
names of one or two human victims, who 
had been thus offered. The Hindoos 
speak of an instrument used in times not 
very remote, by which, with a jerk of his 
foot, a man, lying prostrate before an 
image, might cut off his own head. An 
English officer assured a friend of mine, 
that he saw a Hindoo sacrifice himself on 
a boat in the Ganges : laying his head 
over the side of the boat, with a scymitar 
he aimed a dreadful blow at his own neck, 
and, though he failed to sever the head 
from the body, he fell senseless into the 
river and perished ! Human sacrifices 
not very different from these are still very 
common, especially at Allahabad, as may 
be seen in page 64. 

I may add to that account, that while 
the late Dr. Robinson of Calcutta resided 
at the same place, twelve men were im- 
molated at once in a manner similar to the 



IN INDIA. 85 

sixteen females before mentioned. The 
only difference in these immolations was, 
that the earthen pans, instead of being 
slung across the shoulders, were fastened 
to a stick tied to the waist. As long as 
these pans remained empty, they kept the 
men afloat, but each man with a cup con- 
tinued filling the pans from the river, and 
as soon as filled, they dragged the victim 
to the bottom. 

But the most horrible of all the immola- 
tions among the Hindoos, is the burning 
alive of widows. Between Eight and 
Nine Hundred, in the Presidency of Ben- 
gal alone, every year!!!* This is the 
official statement, signed by the English 
magistrates. How many in the Presiden- 
cies of Madras and Bombay ? And then 
how many more where the British power 
does not extend ? Why, my dear bro- 
ther, where shall we find any thing like 
this in all the annals of time ? Let us sup- 
pose that in each of the other Presiden- 
cies four hundred each year are immolat- 
ed ; and then we have the awful specta- 
cle of Two Thousand widows burnt or bu- 
ried alive every year in India! Search 
every human record, and bring forward 



* I have just seen (May the 1st) the official statement foi" 
1818. 



86 DIMOLATIOXS 

every thing that has ever been practised 
hy the scalping Indian, the cannibals in 
the South seas, &c. and all is civilization 
and the most refined benevolence com- 
pared with this. Let all these two thou- 
sand widows be led along the streets of 
Calcutta, and sacrificed on the esplanade 
there, in one funeral pile! Not one drop 
more of blood would be shed, nor one 
more agony inflicted. But at hearing 
the news of such an immolation as this, 
all Britain, all America would rise in con- 
sternation and horror, and protest in a 
voice loud enough to be heard at the ex- 
tremity of the poles against the repetition 
of so horrible a transaction. Oh! that I 
could collect all the shrieks of these af- 
frighted victims, all the innocent blood 
thus drunk up by the devouring element, 
and all the wailings of these ten thousand 
orphans, losing father and mother on the 
same day, and present them at our mis- 
sionary anniversaries, and carry them 
through every town of the United King- 
dom ! I should surely then be able to 
awaken every heart to the claims of 
British India. Yes, my dear brother, 
4t is British India where these agonizing 
shrieks are heard, where the blood of 
these widows flows into a torrent, and 



Ii\ INDIA. 87 

where these cries of miserable orphans 
are heard. Not that I mean, by these 
remarks, to criminate the British Go- 
vernment ; they would rejoice to put out 
these fires. My object is, to awaken 
attention to these awful facts, but espe- 
cially the attention of the Christian 
public. 

Such, my dear brother, such are the 
horrors attendant upon this organized 
system of departure from God. And thus 
are fulfilled the words of the Psalmist, 
"Their sorrows shall be multiplied that 
hasten after another God." 

I would still hope for an interest in 
your friendship. Don't forget the Hun- 
dred and Fifty Millions in India, nor 
these widows, nor these orphans ; nor 
Your very affectionate brother, 

W. WARD. 



88 THE " ABOMINABLE IDOLATRIES 



ft 



LETTER VIIL 

To Capt. Benj. Wickes, of Philadelphia. 

The Hercules^ at sea^ Jpril 3, 1821. 
]\1y Dear Friend, 

In two or three of the preceding let- 
ters, I have been dwelling on the deplo- 
rable condition of the heathen in India, 
and their need of that gospel, which has 
long been all jour hope and all your joy. 
Two-and-twenty years agoyou were, near- 
ly about this tifoe, entering into engage- 
ments to carry to a part of these heathens 
the glad tidings of mercy ; and you have 
been praying for their salvation ever 
since. Your efforts have been owned. 
Your prayers have been heard. And, in 
thus taking a last farewell in time of 
friends in Britain and America, I could 
not omit recording my sincere and strong 
attachment to Captain Wickes. 

The absurdity of the philosophical sys- 
tem of the Hindoos — the total absence 
among them of every, even the most dis- 
tant, allusion to christian truth, and the 
pernicious and destructive tendency of 



OF THE HINDOOS. U9 

the popular opinions — the deplorable 
state of female society — and the horrible 
cruelties connected with their supersti- 
tions, have already been noticed. I pro- 
pose now to describe the immoral nature 
of their worship. 

Happy will it be, when the description 
of the christian change, wrought in the 
character of the Corinthians, shall be ap- 
plicable to the Hindoos: "but ye are 
washed — but ye are sanctified." The 
writings of the Hindoos, every class of 
them, even their works on ethics, are full 
of abominable allusions and descriptions ; 
so that they are to-day, what they were 
ages ago, a people unrivalled for impu- 
rity. Many parts of the works called 
the Tuntrus, of the poorans, and of their 
poetical writings, are so indelicate, that 
they cannot possibly be translated ; they 
can never see the light. 

It is one thing, however, to find these 
things in romances, poetry, and popular 
fables. They become a million-fold more 
atrocious and more dangerous when ob- 
truded into the theories and offices of re- 
ligion : — " God is light, and in him is no 
darkness at all;" — *' Holiness becometh 
the house of the Lord for ever." 

What must we think then, what must 
8 * 



90 THE " ABOMINABLE IDOLATRIES" 

we feel, when reading the history of the 
Hindoo deities; when the object of wor- 
ship appears before us as the personifica- 
tion of sin itself; when we see crowds 
prostrate before an infamous lecher and 
his concubine ? One or two of the Hindoo 
objects of worship cannot possibly be 
named. How low must human nature 
have sunk, how utterly extinct must every 
moral feeling have become, before the 
spirit of adoration can be excited by the 
sight of sin itself! One would thinks 
that the human mind in its most debased 
state, when it had fallen to that very point 
of moral degradation beyond which there 
is no descent, would still have, in the as- 
sociation of its ideas respecting God, the 
impression that he must be pure. But 
we do not find this to be the case among 
the Hindoos. Again and again have I 
heard the bramhtins say, in immediate re- 
ference to sin and holiness, " God can do 
every thing." It is not then substitution 
of a stump instead of God, that gives to 
idolatry its chief turpitude ; but the sub- 
stitution of the principle of evil. It is this 
which constitutes the very essence of the 
crime ; and man is here the very proto- 
type of the great transgressor; 'Evil, be 
ihou my good.' 



OF THE HINDOOS. 91 

But in the acts of Hindoo worship, the 
&ame licentiousness prevails. In the 
songs and dances before the idols at the 
periodical festivals, impurity throws away 
her mask. The respectable natives them- 
selves are absolutely ashamed of beinor 
seen in their temples. Gopal, a bramhun, 
acknowledged to a friend of mine, that 
he never witnessed these spectacles with- 
out hiding himself behind one of the pil- 
lars of the temple. The scenes exhibit- 
ed in the boats on the Ganges every year 
at the festival of the goddess Doorga, in 
the presence of hundreds of spectators, 
are such, that I have trembled lest my 
own children should look through the 
window as the procession passed my 
house. At the annual festival of the 
goddess of learning, the conduct of the 
worshippers is intolerably ofTensive. The 
figures painted on the car of Jiigunnafh, 
which is exhibited to the public gaze, for 
fifteen days together, at the festivals in 
honour of this deity, are equally licen- 
tious. 

And, as might be expected, the priests 
and the religious mendicants, under this 
profligate system, are the very ringleaders 
HI crime. The whole country is indeed 
given up to abomination to that degree, 



92 THE " ABOMINABLE IDOLATRIES," ETC. 

that, according to the opinion of one of 
the oldest and most respectable residents 
in India, delivered in my hearing more 
than once, there is scarcely a chaste fe- 
male to be found among all these myriads 
of idolaters. 

I hope I shall be forgiven for ventur- 
ing thus far to expose their abominations. 
It is because they are connected with 
what should be divine worship, that I 
cannot be wholly silent on this painful 
subject. Surely that people must be in 
a most miserable condition whose very 
worship is the grand means of the cor- 
ruption of the public morals; and where, 
even in the very sanctuary of religion, 
the mind is instigated to every act of 
profligacy, and prepared for final destruc- 
tion. 

My dear brother, let these deluded 
idolaters have a place in your compas- 
sion, and an interest in your prayers ; 
And forget not. 

Yours, 
In a relation which unites us, and wall for 

ever unite us, to all the family whose 
names are written in heaven, 

W. WARD, 



RELIGIOUS ANXIETY OF THE HINDOOS. 93 

LETTER IX. 

To the Rev. Christmas Evans, of Anglesea. 

The Hercules^ at sea, ^pril 4, 1821. 
Mv Dear Friend, 

I SAW so much of the christian mission- 
ary in your character and labours, when 
I had the pleasure of your company in 
Wales, in July last, that I feel quite anx- 
ious to interest you more and more in the 
condition of the heathen in India. 

The preceding letters will show you 
some of their claims on our compassion ; 
and I propose that the present letter 
should exhibit their case as a people 
among whom are multitudes deeply anx- 
ious about a future state. 

Two ideas appear to have taken such 
hold of the human mind, that neither 
pleasures, business, nor any species of 
error, has been able to eradicate them. 
I mean, that men are sinners, and that 
they are immortal. The Hindoos are 
ever ready to acknowledge that they are 
sinners, and that the soul survives the 
body. They are therefore, at least the 



94 RELIGIOUS ANXIETY 

most thoughtful among them, impressed 
with a great anxiety respecting their fu- 
ture con,dition. 

No people can be more religious than 
they are, if that deserves the name of 
religion in which we can find neither the 
true God, nor the Saviour, nor morality. 
If the bramhuns were to discharge all 
the religious ceremonies enjoined upon 
them, all the twelve hours of every day 
would be spent in religious offices. The 
schemes of this people to obtain hap- 
piness after death are endless, and their 
earnestness and perseverance in prose- 
cuting these schemes have no bounds : — 

1. Here is a man entering on a pilgrim- 
age so full of perils and hardships, that 
he makes his will before he leaves his fa- 
mily. He expects to travel a thousand 
miles, perhaps on foot, and to be absent 
more than twelve months, begging his 
way there and home again. Ask him 
why he encounters all these terrors, and 
he will tell you that his salvation requires 
it. 2. Under that tree sits a man repeat- 
ing the name of his guardian deity, count- 
ing the repetitions by his bead-roll. He 
employs a part of each day in this work, 
which he intends to continue till death. 
3. Ask all these men and women the rea- 



OF THE HINDOOS. 95 

sons for their incessant ablutions in the 
Ganges, and they will tell you that it is to 
wash away their sins. 4. Here is a poor 
man brought in a litter, in the very ago- 
nies of death, that he may not die with- 
out receiving the benefit of the Ganges. 
Another man is seen throwing one of the 
bones of his deceased relation into the 
river, that at least he may not be left with- 
out some resource in the state to which 
he is gone. 5. Rich men spend in some 
cases, as much as 20,000/. and even 
40,000/. in the funeral rites for the good of 
the soul of a parent. 6. Finally, all the 
dreadful immolations which have been 
mentioned, have the good of a future 
state for their object. 

And thus the Hindoo spends much 
time every day in religion ; and many 
give up all their comforts, make the most 
costly sacrifices, endure fatigue, pain, and 
famine, for the good of the soul. Yea, 
some meet death in its most terrible 
forms, under the hope of obtaining the 
happiness of a future state. 

Shall we then refuse to such a people 
the means of finding life? Are they not 
groping in the dark, and many of them 
labouring, according to the light that 
they possess, to find the way of peace ? 



96 RELIGIOUS ANXIETY 

I have sometimes asked an inquiring 
Hindoo, Why do you wish to become a 
christian ? Ah ! Sir, the poor man has 
said, I have tried all the ways which my 
countrymen follow. I have bathed in 
the Ganges ; have visited the holy places ; 
have read our books ; have made presents 
to the bramhuns ; have obeyed my spirit- 
ual guide ; have long repeated the name 
of my guardian deity — but I find no in- 
w ard satisfaction — no relief from all these 
expedients. But I have lately heard, that 
Jesus Christ became incarnate; that he 
died for us his enemies, and died to take 
away our sin. This, I think, must surely 
be the true way of salvation. And it is 
from this conviction, that 1 wish to become 
a christian. 

When a Hindoo comes to die, his 
friends will endeavour to console him by 
repeating his good deeds : — that he has 
always been a good man ; has worshipped 
the gods; regularly performed his ablu- 
tions; been liberal to the priests; has 
done nobody any harm ; and that there- 
fore he can have nothing to fear. The 
dying man breaks out in some such lan- 
guage as this : ' 1 ! What good have 
been doing? I have done nothing but 
evil. And now, w^here am I going .^ — Into 



OP THE HINDOOS. 97 

what new body am I about to transmi- 
grate ?— Or, into what dreadful hell am I 
about to be plunged?' There is among 
them an earnest clinging to ceremonies, 
but no hope in death. 

Permit me now, my dear brother, to 
plead with my fellow-christians, that I 
may, if possible, excite them to feel for all 
these perishing Hindoos. 

And are these the living and dying cir- 
cumstances of one hundred millions of 
beings who are to live for ever.^ How 
can we, with the views we have of the 
certain consequences following a state of 
transgression, and of the worth of the hu- 
man soul; how can we enjoy a moment's 
tranquillity while such a havoc made by 
sin and death is going forward, hour by 
hour, in the same world as that in which 
we live ? How can we be such infidels 
in reference to the threatenings against 
sin, or such tigers in reference to the mil- 
lions who are perishing? Or has Jesus 
Christ given us such a class of feelings, 
that we have ceased to be men ? 

We cultivate the cold earth, and bestow 
upon it unceasing labour ; and always ex- 
pect a crop; but have no heart to culti- 
vate immortal minds, capable of bearing 
fruit unto life eternal— We devote our 
9 



98 RELIGIOUS ANXIETY 

sons to professions, to be qualified for 
which years of initiatory application are 
necessary ; and yet all this preparation 
has nothing greater in view than the re- 
moval of some disease, or the adjustment 
of some difference, or the preparation of 
some artificial accommodation; while 
deathless minds, capable of a divine assi- 
milation, are suffered to become a prey 
to sin now, and to plunge, without any 
one's listening to the noise of the fall, into 
endless night. We embark in specula- 
tions, which deprive us of rest, and ex- 
pose us to disappointment, if not disgrace, 
while the certainties of the kingdom of 
Christ have no allurements for us. Is the 
world to be converted by miracle or by 
means ? If by means, — by " preaching 
the gospel to every creature," and by 
" teaching all nations," — then how heavy 
the responsibility lying upon the christian 
church ! 

But it is said, the heathen are so far 
from us ! What if the Saviour had made 
this objection, and had said, ' That world 
is too far from heaven, and the creatures 
there are too mean and too depraved : I 
cannot think of entering on an underta- 
king which will cost me so many sacri- 
fices.' What in this case would have 



OF THE HLNbOOS. ^9 

been our condition ? Is this loss of the 
soul a less evil because the catastrophe 
happens fifteen thousand miles from our 
doors ? Is the soul less valuable exactly 
in proportion to the distance at Which it 
is placed from our chapel ? Is it the 
distance of the heathen world then from 
us which we plead as an excuse for our 
inactivity? Hear what the apostle says, 
" As much as iieth in me, I am ready to 
preach the gospel to you that are at 
Rome also."— Is it expense that intimi- 
dates us ? Hear what he says further, 
'* I could wish myself accursed from Christ 
— for my brethren." — Are any prevented 
from encouraging the work of missions 
because they think the gospel is not worth 
sending so far.^ Let such remember, 
that the blessings of this gospel are called 
the " unsearchable riches of Christ." Are 
we thus indifferent, and that in the sight 
of Gethsemane, of Calvary, and of Betha- 
ny, and in the presence of Paul, because 
we fear that we can accomplish nothing 
among the heathen, by our presence, our 
prayers, or our property ? Hear the 
voice of Him who has all power in heaven 
and upon earth, " Lo ! I am with you." 

Do not forget, my dear brother, your 
brethren labouring in a field so vast, and 



100 RELIGIOUS ANXIETY, ETC. 

surrounded by 160,000,000 of souls pass- 
ing into eternity every thirty years, nor 
Your very affectionate 
Brother and servant, 

W. WARD. 



ON DIVINE INFLUENCE. 101 

LETTER X. 

To Richard Phillips, Esq. London. 

The Hercules^ at sea, Jlpril 5, 1821. 
My Dear Sir, 

Perhaps every sentiment in this letter 
will not meet with your approbation. But 
to the importance of waiting for the influ- 
ences of the Holy Spirit, " The Friends" 
have borne their unvarying testimony. 
Permit me, therefore, to record, in con- 
nexion with this subject, my very sincere 
and high regard for an individual whose 
name will constantly be associated, in the 
tenderest recollections of the friends of 
man, with those of Sharpe, of Clarkson, 
of Wilberforce, of Teignmouth, &;c. 

In visiting my native country, after a 
long absence, perhaps I have felt more 
powerful impressions while attending the 
meetings of Bible and Missionary Socie- 
ties, than others could be expected to do. 
In some instances, my joy has been al- 
most overpowering. Yet these pleasures 
have sometimes been subject to a consi- 
derable drawback ; and I have then said 
9* 



102 NECESSITY OF PRAYER FOR 

to myself, ' True, in the hands of man 
every good receives a deterioration ; and 
every eifort that he makes, however pure 
and legitimate, is marked with the im- 
pression of human infirmity.' 

The object of the Bible Society is most 
divine, and the union it has cemented 
among al! deserving the christian name, 
after the controversies, persecutions, and 
butcheries of centuries, is one of the sub- 
limest spectacles exhibited since the pri- 
mitive age. Yet, though perhaps more 
pure than almost any other human insti- 
tution, even here, at the meetings devoted 
to the interests of this society, and at 
those of its auxiliaries, the imperfections 
of the human agents have been sometimes 
visible. It need not then excite surprise, 
whatever regret it may excite, if in other 
institutions there should have been found 
the spirit of party, of the corporation: — 
and if, instead of the song " Unto him 
that loved us," we have sometimes 
heard a song to the praise and glory of 
man. 

But this is not all : with the praise of 
man, there has been much foolish and de- 
structive confidence in man. We hear 
incessant references made, with a degree 
of pride, to institutions without end for 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 103 

removing human ignorance and human 
misery, and for bringing in the Millenni- 
um ;. but oh ! how little reference to that 
agency vi^ithout which all these mighty 
operations are doomed to terminate in 
the mere exhibition of human imbecility, 
and the derision of the powers of dark- 
ness. It is most delightful to observe, 
that the missionary spirit has drawn into 
evangelical operation so great a portion 
of the energies and piety of youth, as 
well as the wisdom and talent of both 
sexes in more advanced life. How many 
thousands of Bibles and Testaments (the 
Bible Society has issued at least three 
millions) more than formerly, are now 
perused by mankind ; and on the chris- 
tian sabbath, how many agents are at 
work, how many minds receiving culture, 
and yet how few saving remits ! We are 
content to la'l:>our, and to publish an an- 
nual report, and there the matter ends. 

So in missionary engagements : we send 
forth labourers, and the supposed obliga- 
tion of making the xery most of the suc- 
cess granted, prevents those who preside 
over these efforts from summoning every 
man to his closet, and pointing every man 
to the only means of success — prayer for 
divine influence. We have embarked in 



]04 NECESSITY OF PRAYER FOR 

this cause too much in the spirit of the 
man at St. Helena, rather than as those 
who expect every thing through the me- 
dium of faith and prayer, and who have 
ever present with them the words of the 
Lord of the harvest, " Without me ye can 
do nothing." 

It is true, there is a universal admis- 
sion of the fact, that without the in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit, not a single 
conversion can be wrought, and that 
these influences are promised to prayer; 
yet it is most grievous to witness how 
little practical attention is paid to this 
doctrine, how little of deep solicitude is 
manifested in regard to this all- necessary 
blessing. 

For instance, one would expect, my 
dear Sir, that this would take place of 
every other subject in missionary reports 
and addresses ; and that missionary ser- 
mons would be full of it. But what is the 
real fact? — Should there, however, be 
little notice taken of prayer, as the means 
of success in these publications, surely at 
missionary prayer-meetings, the minister 
who addresses the congregation, and 
those who lead the devotions, will think 
of nothing else ; that the whole service 
will tend to excite a spirit of prayer, or 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 105 

that the whole time will be spent in ear- 
nest supplications, or in waiting, for this 
all-necessary blessing. Nothing can be 
more inauspicious; you would be certain 
that these persons had embraced the 
opinion, that the most probable means of 
obtaining the blessing was to manifest the 
most perfect indifference respecting it. 
Is not this conduct more inconsistent than 
that of the person, who, after sowing his 
rice, should forget to open the sluices 
which are to convey to it the stream 
without which it must inevitably perish ? 
The same painful appearances present 
themselves, at the annual missionary 
meetings in London. One would ex- 
pect, that all the churches of Christ 
throughout the United Kingdom, would 
be invited on these great days to join the 
churches and delegates in London, in 
solemn acts of fasting and prayer. What 
an impressive and most interesting spec- 
tacle would this be, to see all England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, on their knees, 
supplicating the Father of Mercies in 
behalf of One Hundred Millions of hea- 
then subjects; or rather, in behalf of a 
sinful and lost world ! How it would 
commend itself to every serious mind ! 
And might we not hope, that their united 



106 NECESSITY OF PRAYFR FOR 

cries would come up with acceptance 
before Him with whom is the residue of 
the Spirit? But, instead of fasting and 
prayer at these great seasons, w'e keep 
a reUgious jubilee, although 600,000,000 
of the beings to whom it refers, die every 
thirty years "without God, without 
Christ, and without hope in the world !" 
We meet with the feelings of conquerors, 
when, in fact, the whole country remains 
in the hands of the enemy. 

The anxiety felt by missionaries on 
the subject, it is probable, is increased 
by their residence among the idolaters; 
by beholding whole countries perishing; 
so that the missionary is like a person 
walking through a populous town in 
India, in the extremity of a famine, 
when the streets are filled with crowds of 
the famished and dying inhabitants ; by 
having had to grapple with the tremen- 
dous difficulties in the way of conversion 
among the heathen, in addition to those 
which exist in what is called a christian 
country. Britain contains many thou- 
sands of faithful ministers. Even Wales, 
which has not so great a population as 
the town of Calcutta, in Bengal, has a 
thousand. These ministers are surround- 
ed with large attentive congregations. 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 107 

and conversions are now and then pro- 
duced. Here then the want of divine in- 
fluence is less manifest. But in Hin- 
doost'han, miUions are to be taught. The 
labourers are lost among this dense popu- 
lation like a drop in the ocean. The 
prejudices of the natives; their supersti- 
tion, ignorance of all scripture-truths, 
their levity, their multiplied errors ; their 
slavish subjection to the priests; the dif- 
ficulties of the languages; and the terrif- 
fic deprivations following a profession of 
Christianity .-—these and many other diffi- 
culties, added to the natural enmity, 
hardness, and unbelief of the heart, all 
lead the mind of the missionary to feel 
the need of divine help. His spirit is 
bowed down within him, when he sees 
himself surrounded only with idol tem- 
ples, idolatrous priests, rites, and cruel- 
ties, and when those for whom his very 
heart bleeds, treat his most serious ad- 
dresses with contempt or ridicule. How 
often is he ready to ask, " Can these dry 
bones live? O Lord God, thou only) 
knowest." If the friends of missions 
could realize the scenes with which the 
missionary is surrounded, they would be 
better able to participate in the deep 
anxiety felt by him, relative to those in- 



108 NECESSITir OF PRAYER FOR 

fluences which make the gospel "the 
POWER of God." 

This neglect of prayer, my dear Sir, 
must also be considered as grieving the 
Holy Spirit. If the work of conversion, 
bringing men out of darkness into light, 
and from the power of satan unto God, 
be his own work, in vain we attempt to 
convince, to illuminate, and to renovate 
without him. And if his influences are 
bestowed in answer to prayer, (" How 
much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him ;") 
then it is the highest arrogance, not to 
say profaneness, to go into this work 
without the true spirit of believing de- 
pendence, a disposition to give to him 
the honour of a work so peculiarly his 
own. And if we ever enjoy, to any great 
extent, the saving visitations of this Al- 
mighty Agent, they will be given only 
in answer to prayer. The conversions of 
the day of Pentecost were given to the 
first missionaries as men assembled toge- 
ther in one place, and waiting for them. 
Those extensive and deep impressions 
of religion, which have been felt at differ- 
ent times, and at various places, have 
generally been preceded by the use of 
prayer and supplication. Whitefield, 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 109 

Brainerd, and others, it is well known, 
were men eminent for prayer, and for 
their dependence upon divine aid. 

It is a most encouraging considera- 
tion, that we have in these influences all 
we can wish for, whether to meet the 
most unpromising individual case, or to 
subdue the alienation of a world. No 
persons could be apparently further from 
the kingdom of God than the hearers of 
the apostle Peter. Some of them had 
scarcely washed from their hands the 
blood of the Son of God. And yet Three 
Thousand persons, forming also the most 
heterogeneous concourse that were ever 
collected together, were converted under 
one simple discourse. Some persons 
have supposed that the success attending 
the preaching of the apostles was the ef- 
fect of miracles. But if miracles could 
have conn^erted men, then our Lord's 
ministry must have been exceedingly suc- 
cessful. Yet his miracles did little except 
increase the number and malice of his 
enemies. — No, the world was converted 
by that influence which we now so greatly 
need ; and these influences form the only 
breeze which can bring the vessel of 
mercy, freighted with all the human fa- 
mily, into port. In three hours, it is pro- 
10 



110 NECESSITY OP PRAYER FOH 

bable, these 3000 men were converted. 
Supposing the recommencement of such 
a process, and that it was to proceed till 
the world was converted, how many 
hours would be required, at the same 
ratio, to accomplish this stupendous pro- 
digy — this new creation ? 

There is, further, a certainty of success 
when these influences are bestowed, for 
the agent is God. He searcheth, and he 
can change the heart. They can be ac- 
commodated to the moral circumstances 
and powers of the subject; and they en- 
ter the soul, so that there is nothing hid 
from their penetrating energy. — Witness 
Pentecost. Look at the work by Brain- 
erd : he preaches hy means of an uncon- 
verted interpreter: — to convey spiritual 
ideas by such a medium must be most 
difficult. Consider the state of his hear- 
ers : stupid, vicious Indians, destitute of 
every christian idea, and strangers to 
every serious thought. And yet see, they 
weep ; they sob ; they become deeply 
and permanently affected, though there 
has been no appeal to their passions. 
The change wrought upon them is recog- 
nised by all ; and they confirm its reahty 
by a happy death.— -The effects wrought 
through the ministry of Whitefield were 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. Ill 

not less powerful, nor less salutary, nor 
less permanent. To this very hour indi- 
viduals are found ascribing the change 
wrought on them to his preaching, who 
have stood the test of nearly fifty years, 
and thousands have passed the flood. It 
is said, that Whitefield never preached 
without conversion being produced. The 
serious impressions made on the minds 
of many at present, in the state of Con- 
necticut, in the United States, may well 
excite the wonder and gratitude of the 
churches in America. When in New- 
York the other day, I heard that in the ci- 
ty of Hartford and its immediate vicinity 
not less than a thousand persons, at the 
same hour,* were in a state of deep soli- 
citude on that subject, which, more than 
any other, may well be expected to ab- 
sorb, for a time at least, all the powers of 
the human mind. 

To urge us to greater diligence in seek- 
ing the divine assistance, we should con- 
sider, that the whole progress of the dis- 
pensation of mercy through the world is 
inseparably connected with prayer. — 1. 
How long had the pious Jews to pray and 



* The Rev. Dr. Spring, of New- York, and other most respec- 
table ministers, assured me, when in America, that these revi" 
vivals would bear the strictest scrutiny. 



112 NECESSITY OF PRAYER FOR 

wait for the consolation of Israel ! Christ 
was not obtained, then, w^ithout the pray- 
ers of the church. 2. If there ever was 
a being on earth to whom prayer was un- 
necessary, it must have been the Lord 
Jesus Christ; and jet he spent whole 
nights in prayer to his heavenly Father ; 
nor could he finish salvation till he had 
prayed in an agony three times. 3. Fur- 
ther, the reason given why he can save un- 
to the uttermost is, because he ever liveth 
to make intercession. 4. It would ap- 
pear from the 8th verse of the second 
Psalm, that the possession of the heathen, 
also, by the Saviour, is suspended upon 
his petitions : " Ask of me, and I shall give 
thee the heathen for thine inheritance," 
&:c. 5. The blessings of Pentecost, it ap- 
pears, were given while the apostles were, 
with one accord in one place, waiting to 
be endowed with power from on high. — 
6. Our Lord Jesus Christ, too, directs us 
to pray for the Spirit, and to pray to the 
Lord of the harveet. And the apostle 
Paul entreats, that the church would pray 
for him and his missionary brethren, "that 
the word of the Lord might have free 
course and be glorified." 

In prayer for the Holy Spirit, the chris- 
tian brings to his aid an Almighty Agent: 



DIVLNE INFLUENCE. 113 

an enlightening, quickening, and trans- 
forming Spirit. It is weakness laying 
hold of infinite strength : " Prayer," says 
an eloquent writer, " prayer moves the 
hand that moves the world." " He who 
has the car," says another, " has the hand 
of God." The Divine Being conde- 
scends to connect the prayers of his saints 
with the accomplishment of his purposes. 
And thus also in the bestowment of mer- 
cy, he is seated on the throne of grace, to 
receive the petitions of the penitent. — 
When the Christian is found in this atti- 
tude, we see Elijah, in his conflicts with 
the idolaters of his time, bringing the fire 
from heaven. It is the prophet Elisha, 
bringing down the rain, after a drought of 
three years and six months. It is going 
to the Fountain of Mercy, to intercede for 
perishing millions; and moving the di- 
vine faithfulness to fulfil the exceedingly 
great and precious promises, pregnant 
with the blessings of salvation. It is en- 
gaging an influence which brings the cri- 
minal condemned to death into a state of 
pardon and favour, through the Redeem- 
er; which restores to the image of God, 
and to a capacity of enjoying him for ever, 
a wretch who was deformed by eve- 
ry hateful disposition towards God and 
10* 



114 NECESSITY OF PRAYER FOR 

man, and which unites him to a phalanx 
of holy men, who are co-workers with 
God in the renovation of a world. Final- 
ly, it is opening a direct communication be- 
tween heaven and earth : herein God him- 
self descends and dwells with men. And 
thus the kingdoms of this world are to be- 
come the kingdom conquered bj tJie 
power as well as the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Yes, it becomes us to take into the ac- 
count the incalculable good which will 
follo.w the bestowment of this blessing; a 
good rolling on in a mighty torrent, age 
after age, till the earth is filled with the 
knowledge of the Lord. Let the influ- 
ences of the Holy Spirit be poured out, 
and then all obstacles give way, whether 
these obstacles are connected with the 
state of the heathen, or the weakness of 
the instruments ; and men will be made 
willing to renounce all for Christ, for this 
will be the day of divine power. The 
converted natives themselves will be pre- 
pared by these influences to become the 
most efficient agents in the work of con- 
version. Missionary funds, too, in conse- 
quence of this success, will flow into the 
missionary treasury. And the spirit of 
prayer itself will be increased, from these 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 115 

encouragements given in answer to our 
petitions. And thus the life and salva- 
tion of millions will be given to believing 
PRAYER, while success has been, and will 
for ever be, denied to our most splendid 
efforts without it. 

I am, 
With great esteem and affection, 
My dear Sir, 

Yours, faithfully, 

W, WARD. 



116 OVERWHELMIXG DIFFICULTIES 

LETTER XI. 

To the Rev. C. A>-dersox. Edinburgh. 

The HercuJes. at sea. April Q. 1821. 
My dear Brother, 

Such is the tenor of our occupancy here, 
that saiutalions and farewells are almost 
the only things by which our social exis- 
tence is distinguished. The personal 
friendship which was formed last year 
with you in Edinburgh, and continued for 
a few weeks with high satisfaction on my 
part, has been ever since interrupted ; and 
now I am called to place you also among 
friends whom I am to see no more. I 
have had to preach more than a hundred 
discourses in America, and almost all of 
them have been, in fact, farewell dis- 
courses. 

From the knowledge I have of the deep 
interest you have taken in our mission, I 
suppose this review of its triumph over 
first difficulties will not be unwelcome to 
you. 

Hindoost'han certainly presents one of 
the most important and interesting fields 
for missionary labour on earth. Its ex- 



IN INDIA. 117 

tent; the immensity of its population ; its 
being the birth-place of the most extend- 
ed system of polytheism on earth ; its pos- 
session by the British, and the extent of 
the countries around it equally destitute 
of Christianity, give it all this importance. 

We are too apt to associate together 
heathenism and barbarism. They are 
mostly, but not necessarily connected. — 
The Hindoo monarchies were formerly 
splendid and powerful ; were supported 
by a most imposing system of superstition ; 
defended by large armies ; adorned by 
the presence of profound scholars, by 
masterly writings, colleges, and schools ; 
they possessed written laws, magistrates, 
courts of justice, a general police, &c. 

The existence of such a state of culti- 
vated society, though favourable in some 
respects to the christian missionary, does 
not fail to prejudice the heathen againstthe 
pretensions of a system of theology so dif- 
ferent, and in the hands of strangers. But 
it is the antiquity of their own institutions, 
extending back, as the natives suppose, 
many thousand years, which creates the 
greatest reverence in their favour, and 
indisposes the mind to the examination of 
a system which to them appears as a yes- 
terday production. 



118 OVERWHELMING DIFFICULTIES 

Here begin the difficulties of the chris« 
tian missionary. He has, however, in an- 
other principle, to contend with a more 
powerful prejudice. The Hindoos are 
tauojht to treat as unclean all foreigners, 
because amongst them no attention 
is paid to ceremonial ^ritj ; they 
partake, also, of forbidden food; they 
mingle even with the lowest ranks; and, 
in short, they are not Hindoos. These 
ideas of the impurity of foreigners are 
carried to such an extent, that all fami- 
liar association with them renders a Hin- 
doo infamous. If the monarch of Great 
Britain were to visit the east, and should 
accidentally touch the boiled rice of the 
poorest Hindoo, the latter would throw it 
away as rendered unclean even by the 
royal touch, and though he had not 
wherewithal to purchase another meal. — 
How shall these persons be brought to 
join themselves to foreigners, and to 
sit at the same sacred table with them? 
How shall bramhiins do this, who have 
been accustomed to go and bathe again, 
if even an inferior Hindoo has touched 
them after their ablutions, and before they 
have partaken of their food. 

x\nother obstruction arises out of the 
superstitious reverence of the people for 



IN INDIA. 1 J 9 

the gods, the priests, their sacred books, 
and a thousand other objects which have 
been consecrated to idolatry in this, the 
land of the gods. I was once addressing 
a heathen congregation, and urging upon 
them the necessity of their embracing the 
gospel, remindir.g them that all trust in 
the priests was vain, for that they were 
weak as other men, and could neither 
save nor destroy. In the midst of this dis- 
course, one of the hearers threw himself 
prostrate at the feet of the next priest, 
and, lifting up his hands in the posture of 
adoration, said, \ Sir, this is my god.' It 
is not uncommon, for a poor man, in a 
morning, to take a cup of water in his 
hand, and run after the first priest he sees 
in the street, begging him to put his toe 
in the cup, that he may have the honour 
of drinking the water in which a bramhun 
has washed his feet. The dust falling from 
the feet of bramhun guests is often collect- 
ed as they enter the door oftheguest-room, 
and preserved as a sacred treasure. 

The ignorance of the people on every 
subject connected with the truths of di- 
vine revelation is such, that christians at 
home can hardly realize it. I have found 
nothing among the Hindoos upon which 



120 0VERV/HELM1^'G DIFFICULTIES 

I could lay my hand, and say, This was 
derived from the Jews or the Bible.— The 
christian teacher has nothing hke an en- 
lightened understanding on his side. — 
Speak to a Hindoo of God. his mind re- 
verts immediately to some idol; of holi- 
ness, he thinks.ofceremofiiai purity ; of a 
future state, his mind fixes on transmigra- 
tion; of heaven, he thinks of the polluted 
residence of the gods. Thus those. terras 
which the missionary is compelled to use, 
when unexplained, do not give the chris- 
tian idea, but a heathen one. 

The want of moral powers, of a con- 
science, h\ the heathen, and the abomi- 
nable associations, even in reference 
to rehgion, which possess their minds, 
make conversion to a religion, which 
is to purify the affections, and which 
presents to the mind only holy objects, 
peculiarly difficult. 

The levity of the Hindoos on every se- 
rious subject, and the difficulty of gaining 
and fixing their attention, have often made 
my heart sink like a stone within me. 

in the deep hold which this supersti- 
tion has taken of the mind of the Hindoo, 
another difiiculty is found of the most for- 
midable nature. "Tan all our sages 
and philosophers have been mistaken ? 



IN INDIA. 121 

Are ali these voluminous writings founded 
in error ? Can all the countless millions 
who have lived and died believing and 
practising these things have been deceiv- 
ed? And all the miUions with which I 
am now surrounded, are they also mista- 
ken ? Have we not visible proofs of the 
favour of the deity among us ? If he did 
not support them, how could these per- 
sons endure all these sufferings — this man 
with hooks in his back on the swinging- 
post — this, lying day and night on a bed 
of spikes— this, holding up his arm till all 
the blood is drained from it, and it has be- 
come stiff and withered? How, without 
divine support, can men lie down with the 
utmost composure, and look and wait till 
the wheels of the car of Jiigunnat'h pass 
over them ? How be able to cast them- 
selves deliberately into the Ganges with 
a weight fastened to the body? How, 
destitute of this aid, could timid, weak 
females, with calmness, and even triumph 
walk around the funeral pile, and then 
gently lay themselves upon it, that they 
may be consumed to ashes ? If our reli- 
gion be not divine, how are these things 
to be accounted for? 

But, in the law of the cast, we have an 
obstruction still greater than all these.— 
11 



122 OVERWHELBllNG DIFFICULTIES 

All the Hindoos are divided into distinct 
tribes or casts; and the law forbids all 
communion among the different easts ; so 
that one tribe can neither marrj, nor eat, 
drink, nor smoke with another; nor prac- 
tise the ceremonies belonging to another 
tribe. Disobedience to these rules is 
followed by loss of cast, whereby the out- 
cast is cut off at once from father, mother, 
wife, children, brother, sister, and all his 
relations, as well as from all his rights of 
property. He can never hold the least 
intercourse with these persons, nor return 
home. Never again see the face of those 
who have been dearer to him than life it- 
self. And all these fearful penalties are 
incurred in embracing Christianity. The 
christian convert must tear from his heart 
every tender recollection, and remain a 
living naartyr from the hour of his bap- 
tism to the day of his death. I recollect 
one of these converts coming to me one 
day, and saying, in the most plaintive 
tones, ' Sir, I do not want my cast again, 
I do not want to go back to idolatry ; but, 
Sir, could I not go and see my mother 
once more ? Could I not return for once 
and take leave of my friends ?' The poor 
joung man was overcome for a time by 
Aose feelings which Christianity refinefi. 



IN INDIA. 123 

but never extinguishes. I had to bring 
to his recollection, that what he sought 
could not be realized; that these friends 
would not see him ; that in this fruitless 
attempt he might put himself into the 
hands of his enemies ; but that his friends 
could not admit him into their presence, 
witliout exposing themselves to the loss 
of cast. 

Finally, the infamy attached to the loss 
of cast, infallibly insures, many will think, 
the perpetuity of the Hindoo superstition. 
Some persons who have lost cast unin- 
tentionally, have given in largesses to the 
bramhuns, as much as 10,000/. to be re- 
stored to their rank : and others have put 
an end to their lives, unable to endure 
the disgrace into which they have fallen. 

These, and many other obstacles, our 
brethren found in the character and insti- 
tutions of the Hindoos themselves. But 
these were far from including all the dif- 
ficulties of the case : — 

The distance from England to the scene 
of action is fifteen thousand miles, in some 
cases a five months' voyage. To send 
supplies, and to carry on operations at 
such a distance, must impede every kind 
of operation, especially those connected 
with a great mental and moral change. 



124 OVERWHELMING DIFFICULTIES 

The expense attending missions at such 
a distance is also very great, and must ex- 
ceedingly limit the extent of these exer- 
tions. To prepare, to equip, and to land 
each missionary, costs the British public 
not less than 600/., and to maintain him 
there, a considerable annual sum : so that 
charitable funds, where the numbers to 
be taught amount to so many millions, can 
do but little, except in making the com- 
mencement. 

The mortality too which attends the 
transplanting of men from a cold into a 
very warm climate, must be accompanied 
with great losses of energy and of life. Of 
the eight persons forming the number 
with which I sailed to Bengal, four have 
been removed by death; and of eight 
persons arriving some time afterwards, 
only two survive. 

The languages to be acquired form an- 
other order of difficulties. English is 
here of no use in the work to the heathen. 
Besides the Sungskrit, the dialects of In- 
dia amount to not less than fifty. Fifty 
languages to be acquired before all India 
can be instructed ! 

Finally, our brethren found the govern- 
ment of India decidedly inimical to the 
introduction of missionaries. They pre« 



IN INDIA. ]25 

evicted nothing short of the loss of the 
country, if the prejudices of the natives 
were interfered with. A former Gover- 
nor-general would sometimes observe to 
one of the chaplains, that he thought the 
wisest policy the East India Company had 
ever adopted was, never to disturb the 
prejudices of their native subjects. This 
view of the subject made the government 
decidedly hostile to missionary labours ; 
and this policy was pursued to an extent 
well known to all who have felt an inter- 
est in the progress of Christianity in the 
East. To realize the formidable nature 
of this hostility, we must consider that 
no individual can reside or travel in In- 
dia without special leave from the head 
of the government. — It may be here add- 
ed, that our own countrymen, scattered 
all over India, felt the same repugnance 
to missionary exertions, and manifested a 
jfirm determination to second the views of 
government on this head. 

Did ever any cause appear to be more 
hopeless ? — I well recollect, that this was 
the exact feeling on this subject when I 
arrived in Bengal. Every where we were 
advised to go back. Even one or two 
good men thought the attempt utterly im- 
practicable. India, in short, has been 
11* 



126 ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES? 

long considered an impregnable fortresst 
defended by the gods. Many a christian 
soldier, it has been said, may be sacri- 
ficed in the intrenchments ; but the fort 
never will be taken. The Mahometans, 
it is added, tried long to change the Hin- 
doos, to destroy their idols, and to bring 
them to profess the Mahometan faith, but 
in vain:— they put multitudes to the 
sword, and converted the stone idols into 
steps, that every Mahometan, on ascend- 
ing to the mosque, might set his foot on a 
Hindoo god. Yet none of these terrors 
made them give up their idols, or change 
their customs. 

But, my dear brother, it was predicted 
of the Messiah, that he should ''divide 
the spoil with the strong, because he 
poured out his soul unto death." All 

THESE difficulties HAVE BEEN OVERCOME. 

Six hundred Hindoos have renounced their 
godb, the Ganges, and their priests, and have 
shaken from their limbs the chain of the cast. 

The distance between Britain and India has 
been annihilated, for fifty converted natives 
have become, in some sense, missionaries. 

Twenty-five of these fifty languages have 
been conquered. . 

The Hindoos all over Bengal are sohcittng 



REMOVED. 1 27 

schools for their children at the hands of the 
missionaries. 

And^ The government and our countrymen 
are affording the most important aid in the in- 
traduction of licrht and knowledge into India, 
" He MUST increase." 

In the above detail of difficulties, we 
observed that a most formidable one 
arose out of the fears of the Hon. Compa- 
ny and of the local governments, so that 
thej appeared to be utterly averse to mis- 
sionary efforts: Now, in all that concerns 
the mental and moral cultivation of India, 
the Governor-general and the govern- 
ment of Bengal, are become powerful 
auxiliaries. Native schools have, for 
years back, been under their absolute 
patronage. Several christian institutions 
at Calcutta, which have the good of the 
natives as their direct object, receive a 
marked countenance ; and missionaries 
receive the most friendly attentions. The 
School-Book Society, which is supplying 
the natives with translations of interesting 
English books, was formed at the sugges- 
tion, and in fact under the directions of 
the Marchioness of Hastings, who has 
manifested a most benevolent and unde- 
viating solicitude to improve the intellec- 
tual and moral condition of this people. 



1 28 ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES 

In these interesting efforts of the Marchi- 
oness, she may well be denominated, in 
the language of the Holy Scriptures, '* a 
help-meet" to the distinguished nobleman 
at the head of our Indian Empire. 

Did distance and climate present seri- 
ous impediments to the evangelization of 
India? — Providence has raised up fifty 
preachers on the spot: the languages and 
the climate are their own ; and w ith the 
manners and opinions of the people to 
whom they preach, they are perfectly fa- 
miliar. Not an error amongst them which 
they cannot detect and refute. If the 
Holy Spirit pour upon these agents plen- 
tifully of his sacred influences, then each 
one of them will become, as an itinerant 
and a preacher, equal to ten English mis- 
sionaries. Krishun, Rammohun, Sebuk- 
ram, Ramprtisad, and other Hindoo mi- 
nisters, are possessed of very respectable 
talents; and the effects of the ministry of 
these and other natives have been far 
more powerful than those of foreigners. 
Large societies, or churches, exist at 
Chittagong, Sahebgunj, Dinagepore, Cal- 
cutta, and Serampore ; and almost all 
these converts have been gathered by the 
Hindoo preachers. The same may be 
said, of at least three out of four of the 



REMOVED. 129 

six or seven hundred heathen converts 
connected with our mission ; they owe 
their conversion to their own countrymen. 
And these by the Great Shepherd have 
been provided on the spot; and the cH- 
mate is as friendly to their health as that 
of England is to its natives. Add to all 
this, the existence of a missionary Hin- 
doo college, where these Hindoo candi- 
dates for the christian ministry may re- 
ceive for the sacred office all the human 
preparation possible; and then will be 
seen how wonderfully, how providential- 
ly, distance and climate have been sur- 
mounted. In the funds recently contri- 
buted in England and America, will be 
found a sufficient provision for the annual 
support of nearly twenty Hindoo mission- 
ary students. 

•Many of the friends of missions in Ame- 
rica almost despair of the conversion of 
the Indians, on account of the number of 
their dialects; and yet they amount to 
few compared with the dialects of India. 
But more than twenty-five of the lan- 
guages of India have been already con- 
quered ; since either the whole or a part 
of the Sacred Scriptures have been pub- 
lished in twenty -five ; and two of these 
are the Chinese and the Sungskrit, un- 



130 ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES 

questionably the most difficult languages 
on earth. These versions are not offer- 
ed as perfect performances ; but, 1 doubt 
not, thej will bear to be compared with 
any other first versions which have at any 
time been given to the world. 

The opposition of our own countrymen 
in India to missionary efforts, formed an- 
other serious obstacle to the formation 
and progress of missions. But in this re- 
spect a mighty change has been wrought 
in India. A happy number of the Hon. 
Company's servants have become truly 
devoted christians. Chaplains of evangeli- 
cal sentiments and feelings have wonder- 
fully increased, and are very useful in dif- 
fusing the light of the gospel. Five or six 
christian societies ofdevout British soldiers 
have recently existed in the Indian army. 
The Benevolent Institution at Calcutta, 
with its different auxiliaries, is wholly 
supported by our countrymen, who con- 
tribute about 13,000 rupees annually for 
this purpose. The funds for our native 
schools, containing 8000 heathen chil- 
dren, are also principally derived from 
their liberality. And the same is true of 
the large funds raised by the Calcutta 
Auxiliary Bible Society, of the funds of 
the Hindoo College, of those of the School 



REMOVED. 131 

Book Society, the School Society, the two 
Missionary Societies, the Orphan and 
Free Schools, and one or two other chris- 
tian institutions at Calcutta, of great im- 
portance. Some of our countrymen have 
also been liberal in donations to the Se- 
rampore College; and, though a mission- 
ary colki^e, the most noble the Governor- 
general of India is its distinguished pa- 
tron. Nor, in this reference to the greal; 
moral changes which have recently taken 
place in the East, must we forget the Cal- 
cutta Episcopal College, which will, we 
hope, have an important share in the illu- 
mination of the Eastern world. 

But, in the deep antiquity of the Hin- 
doo institutions, in the aversion of the na- 
tives to the least familiar intercourse with 
the whites, in their deep-rooted attach- 
ment to their superstitious rites, in their 
ignorance of every christian truth, in their 
entire want of moral powers and of a con- 
science, in the pollution of their minds, 
in their levity and want of principle, and, 
above all, in the terrors of the law of 
cast, we have before us those stupendous, 
and, as some suppose, those inaccessible 
mountains of difficulty, that have appalled 
the stoutest hearts, and given rise to the 
almost universal opinion that the Hin~ 



132 ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES 

doos never would, never could be con- 
verted. But, surelj the conversion of 
nearly Seven Hundred Hindoos, who 
were not before out-casts, who gave up 
all earthly connexions and prospects 
from their conviction of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, is of itself the most sohd proof 
that can be given of the reality of our 
success, and the certainty of the final 
triumph of Christianity in this country, 
so long the chosen seat of the great de- 
stroyer. A stronger test of sincerity 
scarcely exists than the sacrifice of cast 
for Christ. How few public avowals of 
conversion, humanly speaking, should 
we have in England, if sacrifices such as 
the Hindoo has to make were required ! 
The Roman-catholic excommunication 
was, no doubt, derived from that of the 
Hindoos : how few Romans are converted. 
Not only, however, have so many Hin- 
doos received christian baptism, but a 
great change has taken place, and is ra- 
pidly progressing in Hindoo Society 
throughout Bengal. English ladies and 
gentlemen have been invited to visit Hin- 
doo families; — the sect of Ram-mohun- 
roy is fast increasing, and to it are attach- 
ed several powerful famiiies^—the rich 
Hindoos of Calcutta are associated with 



REMOVED. 



133 



the whites in several of the christian in- 
stitutions there ; — on the eastern side of 
Bengal the rich Hindoos have become 
annual subscribers to the native schools^ 
and before I left Serampore, almost daily 
deputations from the villages all around, 
and from the distance of sixteen and even 
twenty miles, were arriving, and entreat- 
ing us to set up schools in their villages, 
promising to supply schoolmasters, and 
even to turn their family temples into 
Laneasterian school-rooms ! 

Still, perhaps some persons may doubt 
whether these conversions can be relied 
on. To the consideration of such I would 
submit the following facts :— 

Ram-mohiin, a young bramhiin of the 
highest rank, before his conversion set 
fire to the pile which burnt his living 
mother to ashes. I have heard this con- 
vert preach with such pathos and effect, 
in the Hindoost'hanee language, at Dum- 
Dum, near Calcutta, that his auditory 
have been drenched in tears. 

Jugunnat'h, before his conversion, kept 
an idol, worshipped it daily, and obtained 
his support from the offerings voluntarily 
presented to it. After his conversion, he 
took a hatchet, and cut his god to pieces, 
12 



134 ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES 

and consumed him under the pot in which 
his rice was boiled. 

Gorachand, while a mere youth, resist- 
ed all the entreaties of his mother and 
other relations, and sought protection 
from the Danish magistrate against these 
relations, who were employing force to 
carry him away from the missionaries. 

A bramhun recently baptized had, 
while a heathen, taken a vow of perpet- 
ual silence, and had kept this vow for 
four years, residing during this time, at 
the celebrated temple of Kalee, near Cal- 
cutta. He was held in such reverence, 
that when he passed through the streets 
of Calcutta, the rich Hindoos hurried 
down from their houses, and threw 
themselves at his feet, to worship him as 
a deity. He wore several necklaces 
made of the bones of serpents, and his 
whole appearance was that of a being who 
had changed the human state and form. 
Let us look at this man for a moment : he 
possesses all the pride arising from his 
descent from the highest order in his 
country, and from the homage he receives 
from the adoring crowd. How sunk in 
all the brutality of the jogee ! How in- 
toxicated with the fumes of an imagina- 
tioDj which sees deity in every thing, and 



REMOVED. 1 35 

every thing in deity, and with the idea by 
which he identifies himself with God. 
How shall the christian missionary obtain 
access to this man, who has retired to 
this celebrated sanctuary, and who has 
in fact renounced all human intercourse? 
And how shall one ray of light enter such 
a mind, a mind stript of all the attributes 
connected with choice, or even with 
thought? Must not we pronounce this 
man's case absolutely desolate ; and that 
he is, in the very worst sense of the apos- 
tolic declaration, " without hope ?" And 
yet my venerable colleague, Dr. Carey, 
writes me, that this man, through a chris- 
tian tract, in the Bengalee language, 
which some how or other was introduced 
into his solitude, has given up his rank, 
the worship of his countrymen, and all 
his nostrums, and is become a humble 
christian, receiving christian baptism. 

After such conquests, who shall de- 
spair of India, or of Africa, or of the 
North American wanderer? It was not 
without design then, that, connected with 
the command to preach the gospel to 
every creature, our Lord should have 
used these memorable words, " All power 
is given unto me in heaven and upon 
earth." 



136 DIFFICULTIES REMOVED. 

In fact, a moral revolution more grand 
and important has taken place in British 
India, within the last twenty years, than 
is. perhaps, to be found in all the annals 
of the church, the apostolic times except- 
ed. — '• And still it spreads :'' the transla- 
tions are daily advancing: ; education is 
extending its operations in the most rapid 
manner, and converts from these hea- 
thens are almost daily added to the 
christian church; and these converts 
bring their books and their gods, and 
cast them to the moles and to the bats, 
and renounce their covenant with death. 
Christian villages, composed wholly of 
native converts, have been contemplated ; 
and every thing indicates the approach 
of a vast change in the appearance of this 
spiritual desert; a change full of pro- 
mise to all the teemino- millions of Asia. 

Permit me to hope, my dear brother, 
for the continuance of your friendship^ 
vour prayers, your correspondence. 
Ever indeed yours. 



SUCCESS IN INDIA. 137 

LETTER XII. 

To the Rev. Dr. Baldwin, Boston. 

l^he Hercules^ at sea, ^pril 27, 1821. 
My Dear Brother, 

I am disposed to conclude, from the 
little success of our mission for the first 
six years, and from similar appearances 
in other missions, that the christian pub- 
lic have been hardly willing to allow time 
enough for the acquisition of the requisite 
languages, for the characters of their 
missionaries to be known and appreciat- 
ed, and for the seed to take root. 

After we had been at Serampore for 
some time, I well recollect, that, in walk- 
ing through the streets, Mr. Marshman 
and myself would say to one another, 
' O ! if we had but one Hindoo brother, 
but one family in Serampore, into which 
we could enter, and converse on the 
things of the kingdom of God!' The se- 
venth year was then closing, and not one 
native appeared on the side of Christ; 
not one respecting whom we could in- 
dulge the least hope that he was under 
12 * 



138 MISSIONARY success 

christian impressions. Those who had 
made warm professions, had all forsaken 
our brethren, and fled. 

About this time Mr. Thomas sug- 
gested the propriety of setting some time 
apart for prayer on this subject; and we 
began a service for prayer at seven o'clock 
on Tuesday morning, which has been 
continued now for twenty years. 

This special acknowledgment of our 
need of the divine aid, and of our solici- 
tude to obtain it, had not been long made, 
before we were blessed in the conversion 
of Krishnu. This person was a carpen- 
ter, and had a wife and several children. 
He had heard Mr. Thomas preach under 
a tree not far from his own house ; but 
his attention had not been awakened to 
the message, when he fell from a tree, 
and dislocated his arm. Smarting with 
pain, he bethought himself of the white 
man under the cotton tree, for he recol- 
lected having heard that this person was 
a surgeon. He itjimediately sent for Mr. 
Thomas, who went and restored the arm 
to its position. But Mr. Thomas did not 
leave Krishnu till he had told him of the 
salvation which is in Christ Jesus. 
Khrishnii was much affected. Mr. Tho- 
mas daily renewed his visits, and daily 



IN CONVERTS IN INDIA. 139 

preached on Jesus and salvation to this 
poor man and his family ; so that by the 
time the arm had recovered its strength, 
Krishnil was so much impressed, that he 
came himself for instruction, and ulti- 
mately solicited baptism. Here was the 
first-fruits of Bengal. 

From that time to the present the mis- 
sion has been making a gradual but 
steady progress, while encountering many 
formidable difficulties, and sustained 
many severe conflicts. — It reckons at 
present the following stations. In Ben- 
gaU Serampore, Calcutta, Midnapore, 
Jessore, Chittagong, Cutwa, Moorsha- 
dabad, and Dinagepore. In the upper 
provinces^ Monghyr, Digah, Cawnpore, 
Allahabad, Benares, Delhi, and Raj- 
pootonah. In the Islands of the Indian 
ocean^ Columba, Batavia, and Suma- 
tra. — Divine service is conducted at 
these stations in the Bengalee, the Hin- 
doost'hanee, the Hindee, the Burman, 
the Portuguese, the Malay, the Ja- 
vanese, the Cingalese, and the English 
languages. 

More than a thousand persons have 
been initiated into a christian profession 
by baptism, and more than six hundred 
of these were formerly idolaters or Ma- 
hometans. 



140 MISSIONARY SUCCESS 

About fifty of these Asiatics and hea- 
then converts are employed ii- superin- 
tending stations, or as assistants to the 
missionaries in itinerating. 6zc. The gifts 
of soDie of these native helpers are verj 
respectable : they preach with great flu- 
ency, and their labours have greatly suc- 
ceeded : several large societies have been 
gathered wholly by their means. A few 
have been or are respectable authors; 
among these may be mentioned Pitumbur- 
sing. who wrote several pieces ao-ainst 
idolatry, and in defence of Christianity, 
which. I hope, have done considerable 
good : they have been frequently sought 
for bv the natives. Tarachilnd is one of 
ouF best christian Hindoo poets: he has 
composed more than a hundred of the 
hymns found in our Bengalee hymn-book, 
and a pamphlet, placing in striking con- 
trast heathenism and Christianity, which 
I hope will be the means of diffusing 
much christian light. Krishnu and others 
also have written excellent hymns. 

The converts maintain themselves by 
service with the Europeans, by agricul- 
ture, weaving, and various other means. 
Their own industry has improved the out- 
w^ard circumstances of many of them, so 
that their temporal losses in embracing 



IN CONVERTS IN INDIA. 141 

Christianity have been made up to them. 
Large groups of children are rising up, 
and the education which they are receiv- 
ing will, it is hoped, render them truly 
respectable in society. 

A number of the converted Hindoos 
have died happy in the faith of Christ, 
some of them leaving cheering testimo- 
nies of the blessedness they had found in 
Him, in whom alone men can be blessed. 

Pitiimbiir-sing, before his conversion, 
was a very respectable man of the writer 
cast. His conversion is to be attributed 
under divine grace, to his reading a tract 
written for the Lascars by Samuel Pearce, 
and translated Into the Bengalee. I have 
heard him preach with such a force of rea- 
soning, that the idolaters have been cut 
to the heart. — To show that he did not 
repent that he had given up all for Christ, 
when he came to die, he wrote a letter to 
his wife, entreating her to come to Seram- 
pore, and to put in her lot with the chris- 
tians, and not to remain united to the ido- 
laters, among whom her soul would be 
lost: and, just before his death, he inti- 
mated that he then realized the benedic- 
tion of the apostle ; " the grace of the 
Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fel- 
lowship of the Holy Spirit." 



142 MISSIONARY SUCCESS 

Krishnu-prusad, a most interesting 
young bramhun, of a very respectable fa- 
mily, during the three or four years which 
he lived after his baptism, exhibited a 
fine proof of the blessed effects of Chris- 
tianity. And though he died on a boat 
at a distance from Serampore, yet, by the 
account given of his last hours, it appears, 
that he possessed great tranquillity and 
peace in his death. 

Futik received the gospel with great 
sincerity, and professed it with ardent 
zeal. In carrying the gospel to the vil- 
lage where he had lived, he met with the 
most brutal treatment; but he was not 
ashamed of the gospel, nor did he regret 
that he had borne this testimony. He 
was soon rewarded by seeing his mother, 
his sister, and her two children, all join 
the christian congregation at Serampore. 
And when he came to die, his spirit was 
wonderfully supported in passing the 
dark valley : he called those native breth- 
ren who resided near him, to come and 
sing with him ; and while they were sing- 
ing a Bengalee hymn, (Futik joining till 
his voice expired in death,) his spirit was 
liberated, borne away, as it were, on the 
wings of praise, and cheered in its ascent 
by the glorious truth contained in the 



IN CONVERTS IN INDIA. 143 

tjhorus of this hymn. " Eternal salvation 
through thedeith of Christ." 

Rughoo, a Hindoo somewhat advanced 
in life when baptized, had been the de- 
voted slave of the priests ; at six different 
tirn^^s, according to the liumber of scars 
in his back, he hul been swung in the 
air, suspended by large hooks thrust 
through the irueguine: ts of his back, and 
continuing thus suspeiided at each time a 
quarter of an hour. In one of mj visits 
to him, just before his death, he express- 
ed himself in the most artless manner. 1 
asked him some question in reference to 
the presence of Christ with him; when 
he immediately put his hand upon his 
heart, and said, " He is here, — he is here. 
I feel that he is here." 

A number of other cases might be given. 
But I must remember, that this is merely 
a letter. The memoirs of these four have 
been published. 

I must now, my dear brother, again say, 
farewell. The Lord be with you to the 
end ! 

Yours, very faithfully, 

W.WARD 



141 PROGRESS OF TRANSLATIONS 




LETTER XIIL 

To the Rev. Daniel Sharp, Boston, 

The Hercules^ at sea^ J^pril 9, 182r 
My Dear Brother, 

I can never forget you nor the many 
excellent friends I left at Boston. — May 
the spirits of the puritans again hover 
with delight over the churches at Boston, 
and the gospel in its saving power beau- 
tify every christian sanctuary. 

I shall devote this letter to a review of 
the goodness of God towards us in the 
translation of his word into the languages 
of India. 

The necessity that the translation of 
the Holy Scriptures should make a part 
of the work of the Indian missionary, will 
appear, if we consider that the Hindoos 
and the Mahometans have always been 
taught, that their systems are founded on 
divine revelations. Some of the practices 
of the heathen are so absurd, so lewd, or 
so cruel, that they could not have been 
perpetuated, had there been no authority 



IN INDIA. 145 

for them found in their writings. Such a 
hold indeed have these books on the pub- 
lic mind, that the Hindoo, under their 
influence, inflicts on his body the most 
dreadful cruelties, and rushes with eager- 
ness into a violent death. The Vedantu- 
sar sajs, " The self sufficient word which 
proceeds out of the mouth of the Brumhu, 
that is the vedu," (the most sacred of the 
Hindoo writings.) It was necessary then 
to meet them on their own ground ; and, 
instead of the false, to give them the true 
shastru. 

With the sacred volume in his hand, 
the christian missionary, and especially 
the native missionary, is received with a 
respect and reverence which he could not 
otherwise command. 

In some cases, the volume of divine 
truth has become the substitute for a mis- 
sionary, and has been found the means of 
conversion to a heathen ; and each con- 
vert is, in fact, '' begotten by the word of 
truth." 

But, to the heathen convert, so newly 
enlightened, the Holy Scriptures are ab- 
solutely necessary — " to build him up up- 
on his most holy faith," and to show the 
foundation of his faith to others. 
13 



146 PROGRESS OP TRANSLATIONS 

Amongst Other collateral advantages 
arising out of these translations, it ma /be 
observed, that they will fix and enrich^the 
languages of India, since each word here 
receives a recognised meaning, and many 
words are transplanted from the SmZ 

lo embody thus into a dialect all the 
words which convey the peculiar p ipet 

ittllf 'V'"'^' '^ ^"'-^'J enriching 
It to a degree beyond all calculation. ^ 
From hence It appears, that christiani- 
y never could have taken deep root iL 
India, except the christian missionary had 
Ss ^^hibited the Holy Re- 

r.!!''1^'!r-'"^''°"^"''*'*' colleague. Dr. 
Carey, had ,n his mind all these'reasons 
n favour of the work of translation before 
he went to India, I know not; but inThe 
formation of his mind for such a work- 
in his power and habits of application- 
.n the enterprise of his character, and the 

"Z.Trr "^ '^"* ^^^'^ ^'^'^h sees 
things that are not as though they 

:^7^' ?^. *^.e''«Id a remarkable Interpol 
sition of Divine Providence. It is proba- 
ble, that his first anticipations were,°hat 
he mioht hve to translafe the divine word 
into the language of Bengal; by one of 



IN INDIA. 147 

his first letters from thence, it appears, 
that his hopes were confined to this de- 
gree of progress. And if he had given 
the word of God to these twelve millions 
of people only, who had never before 
seen it, and to all the generations of their 
descendants, he would have been the in- 
strument of doing a good which it falls to 
the happy lot of few men to be able to 
accompHsh. 

He wrote the five octavo volumes in 
which the Bengalee Bible is comprised, 
with his own hand, and was proceeding 
in the same unwearied course with the 
Sungskrit, till a pain in his side reminded 
him, that his pundit could do this part of 
the labour equally w^ell with himself. 

After commencing the Bengalee, Dr. 
Carey was appointed one of the professors 
in the college of Fort William ; and, as 
some learned Hindoos and Mahometans 
soon received appointments in this col- 
lege, it attracted the attention of the qua- 
lified natives in every part of the empire. 
It was not long, therefore, after the Sung- 
skrit New Testament had proceeded 
through the press, before learned Hin- 
doos from various parts began to arrive 
at Calcutta, soliciting situations in this col- 
lege. Mrityoonjoy, who assisted Dr. Ca- 



148 PROGRESS OF TRANSLATIONS 

rej in his Stingskrit translations, was the 
head pundit in this college, and all these 
interesting strangers necessarily applied 
to him, and were in consequence intro- 
duced to the Doctor, who here saw all 
India pouring her literary treasures at his 
feet. As but few of these pundits could be 
employed in the college, they were glad 
to accept of employment at Serampore: 
the Sungskrit New Testament was there- 
fore put into their hands, as the standard 
work, and they were directed to give a 
version of this New Testament in their 
own vernacular tongues. The number of 
these native translators, when the Mar- 
tjuis and Marchioness of Hastings, and 
tlie Lord Bishop of Calcutta and his La- 
dy, honoured the missionaries at Seram- 
pore with a visit, amounted to more than 
thirty. It was a most interesting specta- 
cle, to see all these learned men, employ- 
ed in such a work, and coming from al- 
most every province of this immense con- 
tinent, rise up to receive this distinguish- 
ed Nobleman and the Marchioness, and 
the learned Bishop and his Lady. I have 
often wished, that I could have seen an 
engraving of this scene, containing real 
likenesses of the persons; but that, per- 



IN INDIA. 149 

haps, was impossible to be realized in a 
country so distant from Britain. 

The Sungskrit. — This version can be 
read and understood all over India. And 
by it the Bible will become a work fami- 
liarly known in India, and will operate 
extensively to enlighten it, very many 
years earlier than if there had not existed 
this language, which may be called the 
Latin of the East. From the Sungskrit 
almost all the dialects of India have been 
derived ; and therefore under the super- 
intendence of the English translators, eve- 
ry word passing their most careful scruti- 
ny, the transfusion, by learned natives, o 
the Sungskrit version into all these dia- 
lects, became a work by no means insur- 
mountable. But hereby the work of ma- 
ny centuries will be accomplished in less 
than Miy years. 

The Beno-alee. — This version was the 
first completed at press. Four large edi- 
tions of the New Testament have been 
printed; and many thousands of single 
gospels. A version of the whole Bible, 
in one volume, octavo, has been begun 
upon small type. 

The Marhatta. — This is a very exten- 
sive language, but varies in different dis- 
tricts. 

13* 



150 PROGRESS OF TRANSLATIONS 

The Hindee is derived froni the Stings- 
krit, and is completely different from the 
Hindoost'hanee. 

The Ooriya is the language of the pro- 
vince of Orissa, where the temple of Ju- 
gunnat'h is found. The population may 
be equal to that of the principality of 
Wales. 

In these five languages the whole Bible 
has proceeded through the press. And 
this I conjecture must now be the case 
with the Punjabee also, the language 
spoken by the Sikhs. 

The historical books was the only part 
of the Chinese Bible not printed, when I 
received my last letters from Serampore, 
dated in August last ; and a good portion 
of these is, I hope, now finished. This 
vast undertaking, which will receive here- 
after a marked notice, as one of the most 
distinguished objects accomplished in our 
days, may now be considered as complet- 
ed ; and my honoured colleague, Dr. 
Marshman, will, \ am persuaded, be duly 
impressed with this mark of the goodness 
of God towards him, that he should have 
been honoured with this service to the 
church, and that he should have been 
carried through the immense labour 
which it required. Nor let the friends of 



IN INDIA. 15 i 

translations regret that Dr. Morrison was 
also induced to engage in the same work. 
It is a most happy circumstance that there 
should be two distinct translators of so 
great a work as the Chinese Bible. Eve- 
ry first version of such a book as the Bi- 
ble, in any language, will require in future 
editions, many improvements, and all the 
aids possible to carry these versions to 
perfection. If this reasoning apply to ver- 
sions in easy dialects, how much more to 
the Chinese ! 

The New Testament in the Pushtoo, 
the language of Affghanistan, where some 
suppose a part of the ten tribes will be 
found — in the Kunkiin — the Assam^ — the 
Telinga — the Kurnata— and the Gujiiratee, 
had issued from the press before the close 
of the year 1819; and at that period 
twelve more New Testaments, in twelve 
other languages, were in the press. 

And thus, in Twenty-five of the lan- 
guages of India, either in whole or in part, 
the holy scriptures have been already 
printed by us, in none of which languages 
had they ever before appeared. 

In Bengal, where the scriptures have 
been most read, a considerable portion 
of knowledge on christian subjects is 
found, and much respect for the Bible 



152 PROGRESS OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 

manifested. It is also a pleasing consi- 
deration, that from the perusal of the 
New Testament alone several very inte- 
resting conversions have taken place : a 
number of years ago, I left a New Testa- 
ment at Ramkrishnii-poor, after preaching 
in the market-place. From the perusal 
of this book is to be traced the conver- 
sion of Sebukram, now an excellent and 
successful preacher: of Krishnu-das, who 
died happily in his work as a bold and 
zealous preacher; of Jugunnat'h, and one 
or two other individuals. Mr. Chamber- 
lain, some years ago, left a New Testa- 
ment in a village ; and by reading this 
book, a very respectable young man of 
the writer cast, Tarachund, and his bro- 
ther, Mut'hoor, embraced the gospel. Of 
itie first, some notice is taken in the pre- 
ceding letter, and the latter is employed 
as Persian interpreter in the Dutch court 
of justice at Chinsurah. 

I have seen the New Testament lying 
by the sick bed of the christian Hindoo, 
as his best companion ; and the truths it 
contains have been the comfort of the af- 
flicted, and the source of strong consola- 
tion and firm hope in death to many a dy- 
ing Hindoo. Oh ! forget us not. 
Ever faithfully yours, 

W. WARD, 



PROGRESS OF SCHOOLS. 153 

LETTER XIV. 

To the Rev. Lucius Bolles, Salem 

The Hercules^ at sea^ ^pril IO5 1821 > 
My Dear Brother, 

Among the means adopted by the mis- 
sionaries in India for the spread of the gos- 
pel, schools have been for some time in ope- 
ration, and are deservedly popular. And 
yet I have sometimes suspected, that the 
great preference frequently given to this 
order of means has arisen from the want 
of a more firm belief in the certainty of ob- 
taining those influences by which the gos- 
pel is ^' the power of God y When we hear 
persons say, ' Schools are the onli/ means 
by which Christianity can obtain a footing 
in India,' this unbelief is too apparent. 

Still, as a mean equally dependent with 
preaching upon the divine blessing to In- 
dia, schools bear immense promise. This 
will be manifest, if we look at the mental 
and moral circumstances of youth in that 
country. 

The period of childhood and youth is 
generally the seed-time for eternity.-- 



m 



154 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 

Like the passive earth, young persons re- 
ceive the seed sown in their minds, whe- 
ther good or evil, without scrutiny ; and 
are generally the subjects in riper years, 
and to the close of life, of the strong im- 
pressions made upon them, by the per- 
sons, the objects, the conversation, the 
books, and the scenery with which they 
were familiar when the mind was tender 
and open. 

If these remarks be just, as applied to 
mankind in general, they must be pecu- 
liarly applicable to Asiatic youths living 
in a fervid climate, and in a country in 
which every visible object bears the 
marks of an idolatrous consecration : the 
Hindoo youth never opens his eyes, never 
reads a book, without having brought be- 
fore him either heathen temples, idols, 
priests, offerings, shastrus, beads, utensils 
for heathen worship, the pecuHar badge 
of the bramhuns, the Ganges, bathers, the 
ceremonies for the dying, men in the act 
of adoration before the river, the idols, 
the bramhuns, pilgrims, various orders of 
religious mendicants, the oflferings to the 
dead, or some other appendage to this 
splendid system of superstition. He re- 
ceives a positive systematic initiation into 
all the ceremonies which belong to his 



IN INDIA. 155 

tribe. He is taught to cultivate the 
profoundest homage towards the sacred 
books, the bramhuns, his spiritual guide, 
and towards the images of the gods. The 
greater part of the conversation he hears 
refers to the fables of the gods, thf^ power 
of the bramhuns, the austerities of the jo- 
gees, the splendour of the idolatrous festi- 
vals, the ceremonials and vast expenses 
incurred in presenting the offerings for 
the dead, &;c. His youthful feelings be- 
come warmed into enthusiasm when a 
spectator of the public festivals, at the 
sight of the vast masses and columns of 
men, women, and children, leaving the 
depopulated villages and towns, and 
pressing breathless towards the temple : 
when he hears the songs and music ; 
while he witnesses the dances; while he 
gazes at the dazzling image, and beholds 
the crowd in prostrate homage before the 
god. And all these impressions are brought 
to bear upon him with a kind of irresisti- 
ble force, when he refers to the antiquity 
of these institutions, and to their recep- 
tion by one hundred millions of his coun- 
trymen ; when he sees a religious mendi- 
cant making millions of prostrations to a 
celebrated idol, in which he measures the 
whole distance (several hundred miles 



155 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 

perhaps) by the lengths of his own body, 
from the place from which he starts to the 
temple of this idol, or a disciple in the 
act of prostration before his spiritual 
guide, or when he sees an ascetic with his 
right arm erect, stiffened, and withered, 
or surrounded with four fires, or deliber- 
ately sinking himself in the Ganges to rise 
po more ; or when he sees a widow calm- 
ly, triumphantly embracing the flames of 
the funeral pile. 

Such is the initiation of the Hindoo 
youth into the idolatrous institutions of 
his country. Of course this description 
includes the absence of all real cultiva- 
tion of his powers, — of every book, and 
every person, and every thing, that can 
elevate within him the standard of thought, 
or lead him to weigh and to reflect upon 
the system by which the whole of his cha- 
racter here is about to be formed, and 
the whole of his condition -hereafter to be 
regulated. 

In such a state of society, embracing 
millions of children and youth, who does 
not perceive the immeasurable injpor- 
tance of education ? 

Deeply affected by this necessity, the 
missionaries at Serampore, at an early pe- 
riod of the mission, directed their atten- 



# 



IN INDIA. 157 

tion to native schools. The difficulties irt 
their way, presented by the suspicions 
and prejudices of* the natives, were at first 
very great ; but are now removed to a 
considerable extent ; and when I left 
home, more than two years ago, there 
were, in the schools connected with Se- 
ra mpo re alone, eight thousand heathen chil- 
dren ; and three annual reports of the pro- 
gressof these schools have been published. 

A complete system, comprising the per- 
manent features of the plan of mutual edu- 
cation, has been prepared in the Benga- 
lee and the Hindoost'hanee languages, 
and a large stock of school-books and 
tables, &a in these languages, is regu- 
larly kept in the depository at Seram- 
pore. 

The deficiency of the pecuniary means 
to meet the circumstances of the children 
even in a very small part of the province 
of Bengal alone, has led to an improve- 
ment of the plan, by which the parents 
now bear the expense of giving the first 
rudiments to their children. As soon as 
they can read, the missionaries take them 
up, and impart to them those higher in- 
structions by which their minds may be 
enlarged, and they may become thinking 
beings. This improivement has met 
14 



158 PROGRESS OF SCHOOLS 

with the decided approbation of the 
friends of education in Bengal, and pro- 
mises to give the means of instruction to 
a much larger number of heathen chil- 
dren. 

The great object of these schools is to 
supply the children with the elements of 
knowledge in history, astronomy, geogra- 
phy, natural history, &c. which is done 
by means of what are called scientific 
copy-books. Each copy contains (in two, 
three, or four lines) some popular facts 
in reference to these subjects. Reading 
and writing are thus secured ; and, by 
having the copies committed to memory, 
which is an essential part of the plan, the 
mind becomes stored with knowledge 
well calculated to prepare it for the rejec- 
tion of a system of polytheism, at war 
with every principle of reason, and every 
part of divine revelation. Passages of 
scripture suited to meet the particular 
errors of the Hindoo system make a part 
of these copies. 

The effects of these schools in eman- 
cipating the youthful mind, may be rather 
distant ; but they are infallibly sure. It 
is a singular fact, respecting the converts 
among us who have apostatized into open 
sin, that not more than one or two ap- 



IN INDIA, 159 

pear to have gone back to idolatry ; they 
seem to have lost the power of lifting up 
the hand again to the idol. In Ram- 
Mohun-Roy, of Calcutta, we have another 
proof, that the knowledge of European 
science and the practice of idolatry are 
incompatible. This bramhiin has writ- 
ten against polytheism, and yet he is by 
no means a christian. 

The Hindoo youth are of very quick 
capacity, and are capable of the most 
extensive improvement. Already many 
of their prejudices and fears are removed ; 
they are brought nearer to Europeans; 
they become familiar with the printed 
character. The new objects brought 
before them in these school-books begin 
to excite their astonishment, and they 
carry their books home when finished, 
where their friends and neighbours may 
read them. 

What a delightful field is here opened 
to the christian missionary! What a har- 
vest in days to come ! 

May you, my dear brother, in your 
own congregation, see many of the young 
brought by divine grace to love and obey 
the Saviour, and see both your sons call- 
ed, gifted, and made abundantly useful, 



160 PROGRESS OF SCHOOLS IN INDIA. 

ill some department of that work which 
brings men and God, earth and heaven,, 
together. 

Ever, indeed jours, 

W, WARD. 



CHRISTIAN PROGRESS IN INDIA. I6l 

L.ETTER XV. 

To J. Douglass, Esq. of Cavers. 

The Hercules^ at sea, April 11, 1 82 i . 
Dear Sir, 

Whatever may be the extent of that 
moral revolution which has been accom- 
plished in Britain and America during the 
last twenty years, a christian change still 
greater has certainly taken place in Bri- 
tish India, during the same period. 

It was an eccentric action, but, in the 
spiritual state of the Europeans in India 
at that time, it became a striking admo- 
nition : Mr. Thomas (perhaps in 1793) 
in one of the Calcutta papers, advertised 
for a Christian. It had, for some time 
previous to the appearance of this adver- 
tisement, become a jocose remark, that 
every European, on his way to India, 
always left his religion at the Cape of 
Good Hope. And, indeed, I fear it was 
true of many, on landing in India, that 
they were really glad to find themselves 
surrounded no longer with Bibles, with 
christian places of worship, and with de- 
14* 



162 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 

voted christians. Infidelitj and her at- 
tendant vices foinid here a midnight so 
complete, a darkness so free from the in- 
trusion of the unwelcome beams of the 
Sun of Righteousness, that thej consider- 
ed themselves as fairly arrived at home. 
Amongst all the Europeans at Calcutta, 
at the time Mr. Thomas advertised, not 
more than three or four persons could be 
found who could be persuaded to meet 
together for social prayer, and the whole 
country around them was one continued 
interminable moral desert. 

Such was the state of India, even in 
reference to its christian inhabitants, say, 
in the year 1794. What is its state at 
present ? 

1. The government is decidedly friend- 
ly to the mental and moral improvement 
of the natives, especially the Bengal go- 
vernment under the administration of 
the Marquis of Hastings, a nobleman 
whose name will be dear to christianized 
India in ages to come. 

2. Amongst the Europeans in India, a 
great moral change, and many real con- 
versions have taken place. Not less than 
six christian societies in connexion with 
our own mission, existed some time ago, 
among the British soldiers in different re- 
giments. 



IN INDIA. 103 

3. The European gentlemen wholly 
support four branches of what is called 
the Benevolent Institution, for the educa- 
tion of the children of indigent nominal 
christians at Serampore, Calcutta, Dhac- 
ca, and Chittagong, contributing annually 
for this purpose 13,000 rupees. Our na- 
tive schools are also almost supported by 
them ; as well as the Calcutta Auxiliary 
Bible Society, the school and School Book 
societies, &:c. 

4. The Holy Scriptures, in whole or 
in part, have been translated and printed 
in the Sunskrit, the Chinese, the Per- 
sian, the Hindoost'hanee, the Hindee, 
the Bruj-bhasa, the Bengalee, the Mar- 
hatta, the Telinga, the Gujuratee, the 
Shikh, the Kunkun, the Kurnata, the 
Malayalim, the Ooriya, the Assam, and 
the Burman languages, in none of which 
had they ever before appeared. Im- 
proved versions have also been published 
of the Cingalese, the Malay, and the Ar- 
menian scriptures. 

5. The Calcutta Auxiliary Bible So- 
ciety, and all the societies hereafter men- 
tioned, have all arisen within less than 
twenty years. This society has publish- 
ed several important versions of the 
Scriptures in the Asiatic languages, and 



-*:'^^ 



1 64 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 

is accomplishing, with similar institu- 
tions in India, christian services of vast 
promise. 

6. Auxiliary Bible Societies exist at 
Madras, Bombay, Columba, Soomatra, 
Malacca, the Isle of France, Penang, Ba- 
tavia, Amboyna, &lc, 

7. The School-Book Society is a noble 
institution, commenced at the suggestion 
of the Marchioness of I^astings, the ob- 
ject of which is to give popular English 
works to schools, and to the natives in 
their own languages. 

8. The school Society, for the exten- 
sion of schools among the natives, is also 
becoming very highly useful. 

9. Two Missionary Societies have been 
formed at Calcutta, and some funds are 
raised in India for their support. 

10. The Missionary stations are now 
seen stretching from Calcutta to Delhi, 
and from the southern extremity of In- 
dia to Surat. The greater number of 
the islands of the Indian ocean contain 
missionaries ; Ceylon has a large num- 
ber. Several Burmans have recently 
embraced the christian faith. 

11. More than a thousand adults have 
been baptized in our missions alone, the 
greater part of them formerly pagans. 



IN INDIA. 165 

12. At one or other of the different 
Snissionary stations scattered over the 
country, a number of converted heathens 
are added to the christian church every 
month. 

13. A number of bramhiins, and of con- 
verted heathens of lower rank, have be- 
come preachers of the gospel. 

14. Not less than 20,000 heathen chil- 
dren, I presume, are now under instruc- 
tion in India ; and the system of education 
is so consolidated, that nothing but funds 
are wanting to extend these native 
schools all over the country. 

15. The unconverted heathens them- 
selves begin to feel an interest in the 
work of illuminating India. 

16. Almost the whole of this progress 
refers to the presidency of Bengal. But 
to this must be added all that has been 
established under the presidencies of 
Madras and Bombay, and on the islands. 

17. And lastly, theSerampore Missiona- 
ries have founded a Native Missionary 
college at that place. The very idea of 
a Christian college in the midst of dark 
India, unless commenced in the mere 
wantonness of religious pride, holds forth 
an idea of Missionary progress which is 
most cheering. But this college has al- 



166 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANiTY 

ready, in youths mostly descended from 
converted natives, more than forty stu- 
dents in Sungskrit. And candidates for 
the christian ministry will not be wanting, 
for we have, even now, fifty native 
preachers at their posts. The heathen 
youth also, from many parts of India, are 
beginning to flock to this institution to re- 
ceive, while supporting themselves, all 
the benefits of a scientific nature which it 
can impart to them. 

This institution, if under the divine 
blessing, will become a mighty good to 
India. It belongs to a system upon which 
we have been attempting to act for a 
number of years; that is, to make India 
evangelize itself and all the surrounding 
regions. As a part of this system, we 
have carefully avoided every thing which 
might Anglicise the converts. We have 
made no changes in their dress, their 
names, their food, their language, or their 
domestic habits. Krishnii. who was bap- 
tized more than twenty years ago, ap- 
pears among his countrymen as much a 
Hindoo as ever, those things contrary to 
Christianity excepted. If we had given 
the converts English names, and the Eng- 
lish dress and appearance, the idolaters 
would have triumphed; for every such 



il) INDIA. 16.7 

convert would have been a man on a 
gibbet-post, hung up to warn others not 
to permit themselves to fall into the 
hands of the English. 

And thus, in this college also, all that 
is good in Hindoo science, will be retain- 
ed ; native professors for the Eastern lan- 
guages appointed, and European science 
engrafted upon the talents, the acquire- 
ments, and the energies of the natives. 

I hope, dear Sir, if my life be spared, 
to send you accounts frequently of the 
progress of this institution. Ten thou- 
sand thanks for your noble donation. 
'' Ye maunna forget us." 
Permit me to remain, 

Dear Sir, 
Your most obedient and obliged 
humble servant, 

W. WARD. 



168 THE CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION 



LETTER XVT. 

To Joseph Butterworth, Esq. M. P 
London. 

The Hercules^ at sea^ April 12^ 1S2L 

My Dear Sir, 

I HAVE been much gratified in toy visit 
to America, to find, that the Methodists 
have contributed so largely to make the 
wilderness " rejoice and blossom as the 
rose." In passing through Maryland I 
found that, in that state, the Methodists 
are so numerous and so respectable, that 
they influence the acts of the legislature, 
and that a Jaw has lately passed prohibit- 
ing horse-races, the sale of ardent spirits, 
kc. except at such a distance from the 
camp-meetings of this people. You will, 
I dare say, give me credit, when I profess 
my sincere joy at this success. As for 
sects, '• a breath may make them, as a 
breath hath made;" there is much trash 
cleaving to us all — but when I see Him 
whose right it is to reign, and whose do- 
minion is over mind, going forth conquer- 
ing and to conquer,! must and will rejoice. 



ON THE MIND OF A HINDOO. 169 

I am more than ever anxious, my dear 
Sir, to know no man after his sect, to 
know no man as an independent, an 
episcopalian, a presbjterian, a metho- 
dist, or a baptist. 1 would say of every 
one who wears the image of Christ, and 
who contributes to the improvement of 
the spiritual desert which surrounds him, 
and of no one else, the " same is my bro- 
ther, and my sister, and mother." What 
a sad thing, Sir, that while our Lord Je- 
sus Christ loves his people because they 
bear his image, the cause of our attach- 
ment should be, that they belong to us. 
I am told that some episcopalians have 
offered the following apology for not en- 
gaging in foreign missions; It is unneces- 
sary for us to spend our strength in this 
work ; all must come to us at last. I hear 
another say, I pray for the success of 
those who are ordained by " the laying 
on of the hands of the presbytery." A 
methodist is too apt to conclude, that al- 
most all the energy of piety in the world 
is in his connexion. Another sect finds 
every body of professing christians so cor- 
rupt, that they cannot give aid to any of 
them. The Baptist, as he walks through 
a town, points to the churches and cha- 
pels, and says to his friend, "All these are 
15 



170 THE CHRISTIAX TRANSFORMATION 

to become baptist meeting-houses: Jesus 
Christ and his apostles were all baptists." 
Now, we see at present the Idngdom of 
Christ given to none of these exckisively ; 
and all will be disappointed ; and yet not 
one atom of truth will be lost ; not one 
atom of error will be spared. The world 
is not to be conquered bj our favourite 
sentiments, but by the spirit or mind of 
Jesus Christ in us : " the kingdom is to 
be given to the saints of the Most High." 
The eyes of the Saviour, in looking down 
upon earth, are fixed upon his own image 
— " to this man will I look ;" while the 
sect, surrounded by their mud wall, are 
sitting and watching for the shekinah to 
fall upon their favourite sentiments. Let 
us conscientiously profess our opinions; 
but let us love the man of our own sect 
but little, who possesses but little of the 
image of Christ; while we love him in 
whom we see much of Christ, though some 
of his opinions are the very opposite of 
our own, let us love him exceedingly ; and 
then we •• shall know that we are passed 
from death unto life,'' and then collisions 
and sectarian quarrels will cease. If I 
am enabled thus to love all the family 
^' whose names are written in heaven." 1 
have a property in all ; I have fellowship 



ox THE MIND OF A HINDOO. 171 

with all ; the gifts of ail are mine; the spi- 
rituality of all is mine; the success of all, 
at home and abroad, is mine : " My fa- 
ther wrought it all." — I am persuaded, 
my dear Sir, that you think with me that 
this is christian charity. The world is to 
be conqyered neither by argument, nor 
by popular talents, but by Christ (the 
Christ on Calvary) in us— by the energy 
of piety, of christian philanthropy, that pi- 
ties, that weeps, that plunges into the 
thickest danger for the rescue of the sink- 
ing. Does any sect wish to engross to it- 
self the work of renovating the world, the 
only way is to engross all the vital godli- 
ness in the world ; and then it will suc- 
ceed : the Saviour ''seeketh such to serve 
him." 

I have, however,in these remarks, com- 
pletely departed from the design of this 
letter. I intended to have attempted an 
illustration, from the change wrought in 
the views and conduct of a converted 
heathen, of the words of the apostle, " If 
any man be in Christ, he is a new crea- 
ture : old things are passed away. Be- 
hold all things are become new." 

The change in the human mind pro- 
duced in conversion, is wrought by the ap- 
plication of divine truth :■ — 



172 THE CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION 

The Hindoo, before conversion, has no 
other notion of God but what he finds in 
the images he worships, in the fables 
he hears, and in the forms of idol wor- 
ship. And these images, fables, and forms, 
bring before him nothing, on this great 
subject, but materiality, weakness, im- 
purity, cruelty, and sensuality: a log. a 
lewd or cruel story, a mess of food. Ex- 
cept these, the mind is absolutely desti- 
tute, in reference to God, of all other as- 
sociations. What then must be the sur- 
prise, the profound awe, the humble re- 
yerence, the sacred joy, supposing him 
capable of receiving at once, the whole 
impressions of this vast subject, which the 
Hindoo convert feels when he receives 
his first conceptions of God as a spiritual, 
an almighty, an all-pervading, a holy, and 
an eternal Being ? Must not this be 
^•marvellous light r' His worship before 
was addressed to a visible object ; now to 
the invisible Jehovah. Before it was all 
ceremonial ; it is now principally spiritual. 
Formerly all the acts of worship he per- 
formed were as cold as the clay he wor- 
shipped : but now all his powers are 
moved, and he has -' communion with the 
Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." 
*' If any man be in Christ, he is a new 



OF THE MIND OF A HINDOO. 173 

creature.*" I have never seen the idola- 
ters in India more serious, than when, 
in the public street or market-place, 
they have heard one of the native con- 
verts engage in prayer. .1 could see, 
written on their countenances, the sur- 
prise which said, " What is this .'^" 

Sebukram, one of our most eloquent 
and useful native preachers, before his 
conversion, was a ringleader among those 
who sing impure songs in the temples.— 
See him now leading those services in the 
christian temple, by which his own heart, 
and the hearts of those who hear him, be- 
come melted, elevated, purified. See 
him, while the tears and the perspiration 
are rolling down his cheeks in a torrent, 
leading the praises of the deeply affected 
communicants, and hear them sing the 
hymn in the Bengalee, the chorus of which 
is, " He who, giving his own life, redeem- 
ed sinners, O my soul forget him not;" 
and then avoid thinking, if you can, of 
the words of the apostle, " Behold ! all 
things are become new." 

Here is a poor idolater, bathing in the 
Ganges. He has bathed thousands of 
times, and has said, Gungai snan kurile 
paap jai ; that is " In the Ganges bath- 
ing, sin is removed." But the load was 
15* 



174 THE CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION 

never yet removed from his conscience : 
he never found peace with God. See this 
same man coming to the fountain opened 
for sin and uncleanness, or listening to 
the transporting declaration, " the blood 
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all 
sin." What peace ! What joy ! Many 
and many a time has he gone (wringing 
his cloth over his feet to wash them as he 
came up out of the water, John xiii. l6) 
back to his house shivering with cold; no 
beam of hope in his countenance ; no 
fountain opened in his heart ; but now he 
*' tastes that the Lord is gracious," and 
has joy and peace in believing. 

Before his conversion he was directed 
to a plan of fearful austerities, as the 
means of annihilating his passions. He 
was told to renounce his family, to live in 
a forest, to make a vow of perpetual si- 
lence, to environ himself with four scorch- 
ing fires, and to carry on these auste- 
rities till all conscious union between 
spirit and matter was dissolved, and he 
became fitted for absorption into the di- 
vine essence. How cheering to such a 
sufferer is the scripture doctrine of sanc- 
tification, and preparation, by purifying 
influences, for the presence of God! — How 
fearful and ruinous the heathen mode of 



OF THE MIND OF A HINDOO. 175 

purification ! How consoling, how cer- 
tain this ! " He that drinketh of the wa- 
ter that I shall give him, shall never 
thirst ; but the water that I shall give him 
shall be in him a w^ell of water springing 
up into eternal life." 

In this state of heathenism, he referred 
his afflictions to chance, to fate, to the ca- 
price and anger of the gods, or the spells 
of some enemy; or he considered them 
as the consequences of the sins of his past 
birth. He cursed his fate and his ene- 
mies ; he reviled the gods ; and when he 
looked back at the past birth, he mur- 
mured at his destiny. Now, under the 
influence of divine truth, he takes his af- 
flictions as the fruits of his sin, and hum- 
bles himself; but he sees in all the hand 
of a Father, and he says, " It is the Lord 
— let him do as seemeth him good." What 
a contrast between the heathen and the 
christian sufferer! 

The Hindoo is brought to die by the 
side of the Ganges. As he lies there, he 
utters his sorrows in some such words as 
these: " Where am I now going? Into 
what reptile form ? If I lose the human 
form, I must pass through sixty millions of 
births among the brute animals, before I 
can become even a man again. When— 



176 THE CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION 

where will these transmigrations termi- 
nate ? O Gunga (the Ganges) do thou 
receive me. O Ram ! O Narajiin 1 O 
Muhadev! Have mercy on me.*' — Let us 
now look at a converted heathen in his 
djing moments : He says, (and thousands, 
yea, ten thousand times ten thousand dy- 
ing christians have said it.) '' Though I 
walk through the vaiiey of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil." Let it be Pi- 
tumbur-sing, a converted Hindoo, who 
said, as he entered this valley, ' Now I re- 
alize the benediction of the apostle, " The 
grace of onr Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
iove of God, and the fellowship of the Ho- 
ly Spirit, be with you.*' ' What a change 
here fi'om heathenism; here, where the 
systems come to their ordeal ! '• Behold ! 
all things are become new." 

What " unsearchable riches" are here ! 
— Who can estimate the hopes, the joys, 
the peace, the resignation, the transfor- 
mation, the beatific prospects, of such a 
convert ! God, instead of a log of wood ! 
Supporting, delightful, and transforming 
wo'^ship, for abominable orgies ! The 
bloo 1 of atonement, for the waters of a ri- 
ver ! The purifying influences of the 
Holy Spirit, for the most cruel and sense- 
less austerities ! A calm and sweet affi- 



ON THE MIND OF A HINDOO. 177 

ance in the wisdom and benevolence of 
the divine government, instead of stupor, 
frenzy, and murmurings ! The calm and 
triumphant prospects of life and immor- 
tality, instead of distraction and the hope- 
less prospect of interminable transmigra- 
tions. 

But the destiny too is changed. This 
transformation is but the prelude to eter- 
nal life. See the poor stupid Hindoo, 
with his bleeding sides, his pierced 
tongue, the scars in his back, his arm 
erect and withered, or lying on a bed of 
spikes, in the agonies of death, and hear 
him shriek, " Into what brutal form am 
I about to enter? Or into what place 
of torment am I to be plunged ?" And 
then look at the dying christian, and 
hear him say, in all the blessedness of be- 
lieving expectation : " Henceforth there 
is laid up for me, a crown of righteous- 
ness." 

What a proof is this, my dear Sir, that 
" we have not followed cunningly devised 
fables !" " The voice that calls the dead 
to life, must be almighty and divine." 

Accept of the heart, of the hand, of, 
My dear Sir, 

With much truth, 
Your very obliged friend and servant, 

W. WARD. 



178 CERTAINTY OF THE TRIUMPHS 

LETTER XVII. 

To Mrs. Fuller, Kettering. 

The Hercules^ at sea, April 13, 1821. 
My Dear Friend, 

The removal of the person so dear to 
you, and so highly, so deservedly respect- 
ed in the church of Christ, before my re- 
turn to England, was a great diminution 
of my pleasure. England itself seemed 
to have become poorer by his death. I 
might have said Britain, for I found his 
naoie cherished in Scotland with a warmth 
equally creditable to the Scotch and to 
his memory. It was a kind of jubilee in 
Scotland, said a lady to me, when Mr. 
Fuller came down. I am just returned 
from America, and there his writings have 
procured for him a respect which, to my 
feelings, was very gratifying indeed ; he 
was spoken of by persons out of the de- 
nomination as the greatest divine of the 
ag<^ in which he lived. 

On almost every subject of divinity, our 
friend seemed to be at home; but when 
the extension of the kingdom of Christ 



OF THE GOSPEL. 179 

Was the subject, he was evidently raised 
to sit in heavenly places in Christ Je- 
sus. It is to this subject that I propose 
to devote this letter. 

One of the most common titles given to 
our Lord Jesus Christ in scripture, is that 
of King. Yea, he is " King of kings, and 
Lord of lords," and his kingdom is said 
to be an " everlasting kingdom." Nor is 
this right of sovereignty and government 
purely arbitrary; his subjects are his 
creatures; their powers are his gift; the 
principles of his government are divine 
and unchangeable; and the happiness of 
his subjects is inseparably connected with 
his government. 

But all mankind, as by one consent, 
have renounced their allegiance, and are 
become rebels ; and continue in this state 
of rebellion, whether scattered or found 
in associated bodies. In their combined 
state they appear before us as three migh- 
ty powers marshalled under the prince of 
darkness, having for their subordinate 
leaders the Roman pontiff, Mahomet, and 
all the gods of the heathen. 

In his resurrection from the dead, the 
King immortal conquered death, and him 
that had the power of death, that is, the 
prince of darkness. And, after ascend- 



180 CERTAINTY OF THE TRIUMPHS 

ing on high, he sat down at the right hand 
of God, /rom her. iforth expecting till his ene- 
mies be made his footstool ; and till he be- 
come, accoiding to his rights, the God of 
the whole earth. 

Nothing can be more desirable to man, 
to man if alone in the universe ; to man 
in his domestic and social capacity ; to 
him as an animal or as a spiritual being, 
than the reign of Christ. In its sufferings 
under the reign of sin, " all creation tra- 
vails, groans, and bids him come." Who 
that knows the blessedness of the salva- 
tion which is in Christ Jesus — the worth 
of the immortal soul, but feels every other 
subject of anxiety swallowed up in this, 
" Let thy kingdom come .^" 

If thus desirable the universal dominion 
of the Saviour, it is a cheering considera- 
tion, that there is nothing in the state of 
man, nothing in the nature of this king- 
dom, according to the descriptions of the 
Bible, which forbids us to expect that the 
kingdoms of this world shall become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, 
who shall reign for ever and ever. It is 
the progress of light, and the darkness 
flies before it. It is a kingdom of happi- 
ness, and all nations will flow into it, and 
" call him blessed," 



OP THE GOSPEL. . l8l 

Further, it is not only desirable, but 
a full provision has be- n made for this 
universal conquest. According to the 
everlasting covenant, the Father says to 
Christ, " Ask of me, and I shall give thee 
the heathen for thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos- 
sessign." Christ, by his death, made pro- 
vision, that the gospel should ultimately 
bless the whole earth : " He is the propi- 
tiation for our sins (for those already call- 
ed), and not for ours only, but for the 
sins of the whole world." — The influences 
of the Holy Spirit are such, that three 
thousand, or a world, may be brought un- 
der their saving effects in a very short 
period. — And to this state of things the 
Holy Scriptures absolutely lead our con- 
templations : " These ! whence came 
they ?" — " A nation shall be born in a 
day." — " They shall beat their swords in- 
to ploughshares, and learn war no more." 
— " Then shall the earth yield her in- 
crease, and all the ends of the earth shall 
fear him." — " The glory of the Lord shall 
be revealed, and all flesh shall see it to- 
gether; for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken it." 

But still further, it is not only possible ; 
there is not only a provision made, that 
16 



182 CERTAINTY OF THE TRIUMPHS 

our Lord Jesus Christ may be for salva- 
tion to the ends of the earth, " He must 
increase"—" He must reign till he hath 
put all enemies under his feet." It is ab- 
solutely necessary that he should: — 

1. If Jesus Christ were not thus to ob- 
tain universal dominion, then all the an- 
cient predictions and promises would 
fail. These declarations are so nume- 
rous, and their meaning so clear and dis- 
tinct, that we cannot be mistaken in their 
import. But if Christ were not to become 
Lord of all, then, it appears to me, not 
only would all these pledges to the church 
be forfeited, but the promise of the Fa- 
ther to Christ himself would be gone, " I 
will give thee the heathen." 

2. The character of Christ as the Sa- 
viour is here at stake. His honour is 
pledged to " bruise the head of the ser- 
pent—to destroy the works of the devil — 
to extend his dominion from sea to sea, 
and from the river unto the ends of the 
earth." Why is he called the second 
Adam, unless to give us the idea, that he 
would extend the blessings of salvation 
through the earth far as the curse is 
found ? 

3. If such an extension of the kingdom 
of Christ were not accomplished, it ap- 



OF THE GOSPEL. 183 

pears to us that the reward promised to 
Christ, for his sufferings unto death, would 
not be given him : " He shall see of the 
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." 
Now, it is true, we may not exactly know 
what would, on this subject, satisfy the 
Redeemer. We do know, that his heart 
is made of tenderness, that he is " full of 
grace." There is, however, one passage 
which seems to be an express intimation of 
what Christ would consider as a full re- 
ward : " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
men unto me." 

4. The defeat of the enemies of Christ 
would not be realized, if he did not thus 
reign over all. Through the grace of 
Christ, he considers the enemies of men 
as his own enemies. Now all these must 
become " his footstool," must " lick the 
dust," must be " put beneath his feet," 
and there must not be a spot of earth left 
on which they triumph, otherwise the tri- 
umph of the Redeemer of men will not be 
complete. 

5. The final triumphs of righteousness 
over moral evil, render such an extension 
of the kingdom of Christ absolutely ne- 
cessary. Let the present be the hour in 
which " the angel descends from heaven, 
and swears by Him that liveth for ever ^ 



1 84 CERTAINTY OF THE TRIUMPHS 

and ever, that time shall be no longer.*' 
What would be the appearance of things 
in this gathering of all nations and all ge- 
nerations before the judgment-seat of 
Christ.^ Would not Satan then, with the 
far greater proportion of the human race 
in his train, go from the bar as a con- 
queror, rather than as a disappointed, 
confounded, and degraded enemy ? It 
has been observed, that it is probable, 
that the number of the lost will bear no 
more proportion to the number of the 
saved, than the number of criminals who 
suffer under a well-regulated government, 
bear to the number of virtuous citizens. 
And perhaps, in consequence of the long 
continuance of the universal reign of 
Christ, this will be realized, if we place 
all that large portion of the human race 
which has died in infancy among the 
saved. And that these days of universal 
grace will be long, may be fairly inferred, 
I think, from these passages: "He shall 
see his seed — he shall prolong his days — 
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in 
his hands." " As the days of a tree shall 
be the days of my people, and mine elect 
shall long enjoy the work of their hands." 
6. Finally, the expectations of the Re- 
deemer, and those which he has given to 



OP THE GOSPEL. 1 85 

his people, would all be defeated if the 
gospel were not thus to triumph : " And 
I, if 1 be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
me." " From henceforth expecting till \\\s 
enemies be made his footstool." " Let 
thy will be done on earth, as it is done in 
heaven." Christians may be disappoint- 
ed when they pray without authority, but 
they cannot be in those petitions which 
the Redeemer, the Intercessor himself, 
has framed for them. 

And see, my dear friend ! Let us look 
at the gilded horizon, at the refreshing 
scenery around us. What inroads has 
the King of kings made, within the last 
half century, on the territories of all his 
enemies ! Has not every change, every 
new discovery, every improvement, of our 
own times, some clear and distinct refer- 
ence to the progress of the gospel ? 

How many strong holds of antichrist 
have been taken ! What mighty changes! 
What a prodigious apparatus is in mo- 
tion, even in the territories of the beast, 
in the distribution of the divine word, in 
schools throughout France, Spain, Portu- 
gal, and even Italy, and in the exertions 
of the Luthers in the catholic church of 
Germany ! Where is now the power of 
the beast — where those terrors that shook 
16* 



186 CERTAINTY OP THE TRIUMPHS 

Europe to its centre, and brought kings 
and nations suppliants at the feet of the 
monster? No cannons roar, no armies 
make the direct attack, and jet the tow- 
ers totter, and the impregnable fortress 
crumbles and falls under an invisible 
hand ! 

What a flight put to the power of the 
alien, the grand impostor ! How sunk in 
Turkey — how humbled in Africa — how 
completely prostrate in India : there the 
Grand Mogul, and many Mahometan king- 
doms have been given to a christian state. 
The Holy Scriptures have been prepared 
in the Arabic, the Turkish, the Persian, 
the Malay, the Hindoost'hanee, and other 
languages spoken by these people. Mis- 
sions have commenced in various Maho- 
metan countries, and a number of the 
slaves of the impostor have been emanci- 
pated, and have become blessed in the 
Redeemer. 

In the pagan world, the conquests of 
Christ have been still more extensively 
spread. Look at what has been done 
for India, for China, for Africa, for the 
South Seas, &c. &lc. And see the gates 
of brass in South America fly open. Is it 
not a most astonishing exhibition of the 
power of the Holy Spirit, operating on 



OF THE GOSPEL. 1 87 

the minds of the whole heathen world at 
once, when we see the people at Otaheite 
and Owjhee, headed by their kings, unit- 
edly casting their idols into the fire — and 
those in New Zealand, in Madagascar, in 
South Africa, in India, and in North Ame- 
rica, soliciting instruction for themselves 
or their children, at the same moment? 
In these countries, we see the people pre- 
paring to " cast their idols to the moles 
and to the bats,'' and to say, " Thou art 
our portion, O Lord." 

In all this progress, what difficulties 
have been removed — what ground pre- 
pared — what an army in array — what re- 
sources provided — what auxiliaries in the 
prayers of the saints ! All, in fact, rapid- 
ly tends to the grand consummation. 
" The Lord whom we seek will suddenly 
come to his temple," and, amidst the hal- 
lelujahs of a saved world, he will be 
crowned Lord of all — 

" One song employs all nations ; and all cry, 
' Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us.' 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other ; and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy ; 
Till nation after nation taught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosannah round." 

What a satisfaction, my dear friend, that 
he who has been taken from you was per- 



1 88 TRIUMPHS OF THE GOSPEL. 

mitted and assisted to contribute, to so 
happy a degree, in promoting the exten- 
sion and final triumph of this glorious 
kingdom. What an honour was your 
union to so good, so great a man ; and how 
many circumstances are to be found in 
his life, to reconcile you to his absence ! 
Now and then, at least, remember, 
My dear Friend, 

Your affectionate Brother, 

W. WARD. 



SUGGESTIONS TO MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 1&9 

LETTER XVIir. 

To a MissioNANY Student. 

The Hercules^ at sea, April 14, 1821, 

My Dear Friend, 

You are expecting soon to be united 
to an order of men who make an abso- 
lutely necessary part of the christian 
church according to its original constitu- 
tion : I congratulate you. The plan at 
present of localizing a minister for a mere 
Sunday exhibition, making no provision 
whatever for preaching the gospel to eve- 
ry creature, 1 cannot but consider as self- 
ish and vicious. It is surely the duty of 
every christian society, to maintain, in the 
first place, an evangelist, expressly for 
preaching to the unconverted ; and if they 
cannot maintain two ministers, they may 
safely depend, for the building up of be- 
lievers, upon those more retired services 
which have been found so truly edifying 
to pious minds : perhaps more so than 
public exhibitions. 1 do not say that this 
evangelist should go to foreign countries : 
let him be wholly employed in the tow^i 



190 SUGGESTIONS TO 

and in his own chapel, in seeking the lost, 
in preaching to the unconverted ; this is 
his proper work. 

Whatever my christian brethren of dif- 
ferent denominations may conclude re- 
specting these conjectures, your work is 
decided upon, and I have only to express 
my hearty wishes, that you may *' do the 
work of an evangelist." 

When the ministry of our Lord Jesus 
Christ drew near to its close, and he was 
about to finish his work on earth, it is ob- 
servable that he again and again called 
the attention of his apostles to the coming 
of another agent, the Holy Spirit, who 
w^as to "convince the world of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment.'' Does 
not our Lord here mean, He shall, in the 
christian ministry, convince of a state of 
sin and ruin; he shall lead to my all-suf- 
ficiency, as a Saviour, since I go to my 
Father, ever living to make intercession; 
and he shall press upon men the necessi- 
ty of an immediate reception of this sal- 
vation, by the terrors of a judgment to 
come ? 

As though our Lord had said, in these 
last references to the coming of the Spirit 
of Truth, ^' I am now about, by my suf- 
" ferings and death, to make an end oi 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 191 

^' sin, and to bring in everlasting salva- 
'• tion. But whether any good shall arise 
" from this, whether one soul shall ever 
" be saved by my death, depends upon 
" another agent : ' he shall take of the 
" things of mine,' and thereby give effica- 
" cy in the hearts of men to my passion. 
'' The whole hope of men, as it respects 
" the enjoyment of salvation, must depend 
" therefore on the Holy Spirit. I com- 
" mit the promulgatory part of this plan 
" to men, to human hands. Still, I must 
" remind these agents, that they are 
" earthen vessels ; that Paul will be no- 
" thing, Apollos nothing ; the increase 
" will depend on myself Without me 
" they can do nothing. I will not give 
^' the glory, nor any part of the glory, of 
" conversion, to another. I exclude from 
" all participation in the honours of this 
" new creation, all human wisdom and 
" eloquence, (1 Cor. ii. 6.) all human 
" power. Not by might, not by power, 
" but by my Spirit. Go ye therefore in- 
" to all the world — teach all nations — 
" preach the gospel, and let every crea- 
" ture hear it." 

Here then, my dear friend, is your com- 
mission from the lips of the Redeemer. 
How may you best fulfil it ? 



192 SUGGESTIONS TO 

In this commission, you observe, you 
became associated with Jehovah in the 
accomplishment of his eternal purposes — 
with Calvary and all the never-terminating 
good flowing from it. and with a divine ener- 
gy which is destined to re-create a world. 
Oh ! who can come into so near a con- 
nexion with Deity, and not be penetrated 
and filled with awe, and not exclaim with 
Moses, " O my Lord, send, I pray thee, 
by the hand of him whom thou shouldest 
send!" Oh! What is this? To have 
one's existence connected with the whole 
of the vast process belonging to everlast- 
ing counsels, to creation, to providence, 
to redemption, and to the final and ever- 
lasting results of this stupendous mystery 
— to be engaged in accomplishing designs 
of mercy, waiting for the accomplishment 
of which the universal conflagration is 
suspended, the sun permitted to remain 
in the heavens, and the stars still allowed 
to fulfil their courses; — to have an em- 
ployment by which I become immediate- 
ly connected with the interposition and 
descent from heaven of a divine person : 
— by wbich I become immediately con- 
nected with a design for the recovery of 
the honours of the divine government, 
and to secure the eternal salvation of im- 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 193 

perishable minds; and, finally, by which 
I become associated in a work to accom- 
plish which a direct communication is 
opened between earth and heaven, in 
which there is an immediate interposition 
of almighty power, a constant succession 
of spiritual miracles;— to be the medium 
through which proceeds the power that 
quickens the dead, the light that irradi- 
ates the mind, the influences that move 
and win the heart;— to be one of those 
instruments by which Jesus Christ is to 
possess the kingdoms of this world, and 
to which, as instruments, countless myri- 
ads are to trace their rescue from a ruin 
which would never have terminated, and 
their possession of a blessedness, which, 
through the poverty of human language' 
IS called eternal life / Oh ! who, who is 
sufficient for these things ? What man- 
ner of being ought I to be !— Well may 
such an agent ask himself, How may I 
make full proof of a ministry which might 
command the grasp, the piety, the inter- 
course with God, of an angel? 

First of all— on entering a climate so 
different from your own, begin a course of 
regimen which may, under God, secure 
your health and vigour of mind. Rise 
early ; at ^we at least. Use exercise, on 
17 



194 SUGGESTIONS TO 

foot or on horseback, every morning with- 
out fail till the sun is up. Bathe regular- 
ly, if it be found to refresh you. Use ani- 
mal food, but adhere to a rigid system of 
comparative abstemiousness as it respects 
solid food, fruit, wine, &c. Keep the body 
from all chills, using flannels, &c. Pre- 
serve the mind from all excessive anxie- 
ty. Avoid exposure to the sun during the 
day, and to the damps at night. Renew 
your exercise in the evening. With these 
precautions, unless there be in your con- 
stitution some fixed tendency to billions 
complaints, you may hope to enjoy a fair 
share of health. 

In the next place, apply seriously and 
perseveringly to the acquirement of the 
language in which you are to preach ; 
and, until you have mastered its chief 
difficulties, avoid commencing any other 
new language. To read it will soon be 
easy; the construction will present no 
great difficulties; but the sounds and 
the accent will cost you some pains. In 
obtaining a language intended to be used 
colloquially, the habit of listening to the 
natives, and catching the living sounds 
and expressions from their lips, is abso- 
lutely necessary; and this habit being 
acquired, no difficulty remains. Children 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 195 

on this account are more successful than 
their parents. As soon as a few sen- 
tences are acquired, begin to use them ; 
practice will secure progress. 

When you can understand the natives, 
endeavour to obtain from them an ac- 
count of their religion; its theory, cere- 
monies, &LC. Statements made by them- 
selves will be more correct than what 
you can find in books; and, in gaining 
the relation from one upon whom the sys- 
tem has made a strong impression, you 
will find matter for thought, for sermons, 
and for prayer, which you could obtain 
by no other process. 

In preaching, study simplicity of style 
and arrangement. If the colloquial me- 
thod be necessary any where, it is when 
a preacher wishes to instruct heathens, 
and that in their own language. Explain 
every word which Is exclusively christian, 
and search out and use as much as pos- 
sible eastern modes of illustration. Des- 
pise not native preachers, but cultivate 
and use them as much as possible. Neg- 
lect them, and kill yourself, is the certain 
way to do as little good as possible. 

You will have committed to you, my 
dear friend, not the same people from 
sabbath to sabbath enclosed within cer- 



196 SUGGESTIONS TO 

tain walls, but, in the streets, you will 
have several congregations while preach- 
ing one sermon ; you will have to preach 
in a language imperfectly acquired; to 
men in a state of darkness and infatua- 
tion, of which you can now form but a 
very inadequate idea ; to men who must 
be sought after, and respecting multi- 
tudes of whom you will never have but 
one opportunity of rescuing them from 
perishing. What enterprise, applica- 
tion, and perseverance — what spirituali- 
ty and aptness to teach, so as to be in- 
stant in season and out of season, are 
here required ! 

If you have no secular engagements, 
devote your time during the heat of the 
day, to catechumens, to inquirers, and 
to candidates for the ministry, at home. 
Let every hour have its occupation : ex- 
ercise for the mind is as absolutely neces- 
sary in warm climates as for the body. 
In a missionary life, more than any other, 
is the advice of the apostle suitable : 
" Mind not high things, but condescend 
to men of low estate." Cherish the con- 
verts as "new-born babes," as far as ten- 
derness and attention go. Pity their 
weaknesses; bear with them as children, 
as your own children. How often the 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 197 

apostle uses towards the heathen con- 
verts the terms, "my little children!" I 
have often wished to see something like 
the Methodist class-meetings amongst us 
in India. No professors on earth need 
meetings somewhat like these, so much as 
men recently brought from heathenism. 

These remarks refer to exterior prepa- 
ration. Beyond every thing else, how- 
ever, your success depends not absolute- 
ly upon the state of your own mind. In 
the preceding part of this letter I have 
hinted, that a christian minister is the me- 
dium through which the power, the light, 
and the influence are to pass which are 
to be conveyed into the heart of the 
hearer. But the minister is not here a 
mere vacuum or tube ; the Holy Spirit 
takes the word of truth, and through it 
the power first rests on the spirit of this 
evangelist; the light first irradiates his 
mind; the influence first moves his heart; 
and from thence they pass to impress, and 
enlighten, and move, the heart of the 
hearer. You must therefore be brought 
into an intimate acquaintance with divine 
truth, and feel its deep impressions on 
your own spirit, or you cannot be this 
medium of communication between earth 
and heaven. In Whitefield, and Brainerd, 
17 ^ 



198 SUGGESTIONS TO 

and Pearce, what I mean was remarka- 
bly exemplified. There was no outv/ard 
appearance on their persons when they 
began their sermons; but they so felt 
the subjects on which they preached, that 
they evidently appeared, in a modified 
sense, to be moved by the Holy Ghost. 
You have no doubt read the memoirs of 
these consecrated men, and ycu recollect 
the wonderful effects produced on their 
congregations: you perceive a melting, a 
bowing, and a transforming influence, that 
bears its own credentials. 

The great secret, then, of the success 
of these missionary men was, their per- 
sonal rehgion ; their high consecration of 
themselves and their supreme devoted- 
ness to God. And on these, my dear 
friend, under God, you must depend for 
your success, and for every atom of it. I 
conceive that there are, however, truths 
w^hich the Holy Spirit mostly blesses, as 
best suited to meet the case of a sinner, 
to awaken in his mind those inquiries 
and anxieties which are connected with 
true conversion, and to lead him to a true 
christian dependence upon the sacrifice 
of Christ. And to these truths the mind 
of the successful preacher will be led^ 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 199 

and in his meditations on them his own 
heart will be particularly affected. 

If, my dear friend, the Almighty had 
given you a share in the creation of this 
sun, which illumines and makes fruitful 
the whole earth, and in directing the 
course of all these terrene affairs, how 
much you would have felt the honour. 
And yet this luminary, and all the con- 
cerns of time, will soon pass into a shade 
black as sackcloth, and be remembered 
no more. But he has called you to co- 
operate with him in a work which will not 
only survive the universal wreck, but fill 
all heaven with never-ending praise. Con- 
sider your vast responsibility. You, with 
all your brethren, in the absence of Jesus 
Christ, are the representatives of his 
mercy upon earth. Pray much, that the 
grace of the Saviour may be poured upon 
you and anoint you for this glorious^ 
yet overwhelming service. Often look 
forward to the hour, when you must give 
account of yourself^ and of your steward- 



* How blessed the ministry, even on earth, of a man al- 
ways emploj^ed in the grand work of saving immortal beings, 
compared with that of a man spending his days in making a 
people satisfied with their opinions and their state ! How in- 
teresting the work which thus engages all the soul, all the com- 
passion, and all the energies of the agent ! 



200 SUGGESTIONS TO 

ship, to God; and keep in mind the so- 
lemn stake you have in the approaching 
judgment. Oh! to have neglected the 
welfare of one soul, upon whom the sen- 
tence is about to be pronounced, *' Depart 
— I know you not !" To meet the pierc- 
ing look of such a wretch overwhelmed 
with despair, and reminding me by that 
look, that there was a time in which I 
might have warned, have entreated, have 
allured to a brighter destiny. — But if I 
may have been the means of recovering 
some from an infamous misapplication of 
their powers, and from inevitable and 
eternal ruin; if I may have been the me- 
dium of communicating to them a blessed- 
ness which now, in the smiles and gra- 
cious words of the Judge, begins to open 
upon them in all its radiance and in all its 
extent; — if I may have contributed to the 
splendours of this day — to these triumphs 
— to these results, so satisfactory to the 
Redeemer, to angels, and to men — then 
I shall not regret my former banishment 
from my country — and insalubrious cli- 
mate — the loss of christian society — ex- 
haustion of strength and spirits, — no, nor 
premature (if that word be not unchris- 
tian) premature death. 



MISSIONARY STUDENTS. 201 

May many such souls, my dear friend, 
be thine. " Be faithful unto death"— a 
crown of life awaits thee. 

Ever most truly yours, 

W. WARD. 



202 ORIGIN OF THE 

LETTER XIX. 

To Dr. Charles Stuart, Edinburgh. 

Liverpool^ April 16, 1821. 
My Dear Sir, 

The following account of the origin of 
the Dutch baptists, given by Dr Ypeij, 
principal teacher of theology, at Gronin- 
gen, and by the Rev, J. J. Dermont, secre- 
tary to the synod of the Dutch reformed 
church, preacher at the Hague, and chap- 
lain to the king of the Netherlands, is 
marked by so much liberality of senti- 
ment, and is so honourable to our deno- 
mination, that I am persuaded you will 
he much gratified by its perusal. It ap- 
pears in the first volume of a work pub- 
lished by these gentlemen at Breda, in the 
year 1819. The translation is not verbal, 
but to the meaning of the authors I be- 
lieve my friend, Mr. Angas, has rigidly 
adhered. 

" The present race of Dutch baptists," 
say these authors, "are descended from 
the tolerably pure evangelical Wnldenses, 
who were driven by persecution into va- 



MENNONITES. 203 

rious countries; and who, during the lat- 
ter part of the twelfth century, fled into 
Flanders, and into the provinces of Hol- 
land and Zealand, where they lived sim- 
ple and exemplary lives, in the villages as 
farmers, and in the towns by trades and 
various handicraft labours, free from the 
charge of any gross immoralities, and pro- 
fessing the most pure and simple princi- 
ples, which they exemplified in a holy 
conversation. They were therefore in 
existence long before the reformed church 
in the Netherlands. 

'* Besides other points of belief among 
the Waldenses, they professed to adhere 
only to the sacred scriptures, rejecting 
the authority of the fathers, and ecclesi- 
asticaI%ynods, and of the pope ; and own- 
ing no representative of Christ on earth. 
They maintained, that all the brethren 
were equal ; and that each had a right to 
exhort for edification, and to reprove an- 
other in the church. They rejected tran- 
substantiation and confession to a priest, 
declaring that salvation was only to be 
obtained by faith in Christ; and that good 
works would not purchase salvation ; but 
that works were necessary as the con- 
firmation and evidence of faith, and as 
obedience to the will of God. Religion, 



204 ORIGIN OF THE 

they said, was not confined to time or 
place; but that it was proper to meet on 
the first day of the week to honour God; 
it was duty to preach and hear the pure 
gospel, to honour the Saviour, (but not to 
do homage to saints,) to observe both the 
sacraments, (fee They professed to ad- 
here rigidly to the scheme of christian 
morals laid down by our Saviour in his 
sermon on the mount : hence they judged 
it to be improper to bear arms ; to resist 
injustice even by a law process, or to take 
an oath. From this they were called the 
yea and nay people. 

" Respecting the government of the 
church, they believed it to be invested 
according to apostolic example, in bishops, 
elders, and deacons ; but they denied that 
these officers were to be exalted above 
their brethren ; affirming, that they, like 
apostles, should be unlettered, not rich, 
nor powerful; but earning their support 
by any secular employment, or by daily 
labour. 

" From this history of the old Dutch 
Waldenses, as they existed in the 12th 
century, and from the doctrines they held 
at that time, and during the following 
centuries, we see what a striking simi- 
larity there existed between them and the 



MENNONITES. 205 

ancient and latter Dutch baptists, whose 
existence and doctrines are so well 
known. It must, however, be admitted, 
that there is no reference to baptism in 
any of the confessions of faith of the Wal- 
fuTfu* ^^^'^,^^J^eless it is indisputable 
that the Dutch Waldenses rejected the 
baptism of children, and applied the or- 
dinance to adults alone. This is main^ 
tamed by Hieronymus, Verdussen, Cli^- 
ny, and other Roman catholic writers. 

"In the beginning of the I6th century, 
the Dutch Waldenses, or as they were 
then called, the anabaptists, perceivinsf 
that many learned men exposed the igno- 
rance, errors, and superstition of the 
people, no longer hid themselves, but be- 
gan the dissemination of purer religious 
knowledge, that they might annihilate, 
as iar as possible, the power of the 
Komish superstition. They were so 
successful in drawing persons to baptism 
Irom the Romish communion, that the 
civil rulers issued strict orders against 
their persons ; who, however, still multi- 
plied, till they were at length joined in 
this opposition to Rome by other reform- 
ers. This was before even the name of 
tiuther was known as a reformer. 

" Had the anabaptists at that time pos- 
18 ^ 



206 ORIGIN OF THE 

sessed men truly learned, how great moBt 
have been the harvest arising from the 
good seed which ihey then sowed 1 From 
their communion would probably have 
arisen, and that much earlier than it did, 
all that light which now beams upon Eu- 
rope* But there was not one person 
among them qualified to become a refor- 
mer of the Roman church ; not one who 
possessed sufficient learning to obtain that 
influence as a writer, as that he might be 
looked up to as an universal guide. For 
since the 12th century, not one person 
distinguished for learning had appeared 
amongst them. The renowned Peter 
Waldus, known in their history, may be 
considered as the first and the last indivi- 
dual among them who was eminently 
learned : hence they were despised by 
the Romish church. They were in fact, 
little known: they lived in retirement, 
cultivating only those virtues which dis- 
tinguished them as good citizens, and as 
a pure christian community. They have 
this latter testimony from very early Ro- 
man catholic writers, who were willing to 
do homage to the truth. 

" From hence it will appear, how^eat- 
ly the Dutch Waldenses, or the so called 
mnabaptists, would rejoice when Luther 



MENNONITES. 207 

and his followers began the Reformation : 
they avowed their approbation ofit,prais- 
ing God that he had raised up brethren 
with whom they might unite in the essen- 
tial points of the gospel. 

'' There were then two sects amongst 
them : the one distinguished by the name 
the perfect^ and the other the imperfect. — 
The former professed to have a commu- 
nity of goods, so that none should be rich 
while the others were poor. Some car- 
ried the principle so far, that they some- 
times suffered from want and nakedness. 
The imperfect lived less strict,and indulg- 
ed in a greater intercourse with mankind. 
Both these sects were spread all over 
Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. 

" Fanatical persons among the follow- 
ers of Luther and Zuinglius, took advan- 
tage of the simplicity of many of the first 
sect, called the perfect, and urged them 
to assist in acts of outrage and insurrec- 
tion. Among the followers of Luther thus 
acting were Storck and Muntzer ; and 
among those of Zuinglius were Lodowyk, 
Hetzer, B. Hubmer, and others. By far 
the greater part of the first sect, the per- 
fect, and the whole of the second, were 
certainly the most pious christians the 
church ever saw, and the worthiest citi- 



20B ORIGIN OF THE 

zens the state ever had. History removes 
every doubt upon this subject. 

" It is certain, that these worthy ana- 
baptists, or, who may be better called 
baptists, were found in great numbers in 
the Netherlands, not only in Holland, 
Friezland, Groningen, but especially in 
Flanders; consequently in those provinces 
wherein we have related that the Wal- 
denses, their ancestors, had established 
themselves in and after the twelfth centu- 

" And here they had the good fortune, 
in the year 1536, that their scattered com- 
munity obtained a regular state of church 
order, separate from all Dutch and Ger- 
man protestants, who at that time had not 
been formed into one body by any bonds 
of unity. This advantage was procured 
them by the sensible management of a 
Friezland protestant, Menno Simons,born 
at Witmarsum, and who had formerly 
been a popish priest. This learned, wise, 
and prudent man was chosen by them 
as their leader, that they might, by his 
paternal efforts, in the eyes of all Chris- 
tendom, be cleared from that blame which 
some of them had incurred. This object 
was accomplished accordingly : some of 
the perfectionists he reclaimed to order, 



MENNONITES. 209 

and others he excluded, and gave up to 
the contempt of their brethren. He puri- 
fied also the religious doctrines of the 
baptists. 

" We have now seen, that the baptists, 
who were formerly called anabaptists, and 
in later times Mennonites, were the origi- 
nal Waldenses ; and who have long, in the 
history of the church, received the honour 
of that origin. On this account, the baptists 
may be considered as the only christian 
community which has stood since the times 
of the apostles; and as a christian society 
which has preserved pure the doctrines of 
the gospel through all ages. The per- 
fectly correct external and internal eco- 
nomy of the Baptist denomination tends 
to confirm the truth, disputed by the Ro- 
mish church,that the Reformation brought 
about in the sixteenth century was in the 
highest degree necessary ; and at the same 
time goes to refute the erroneous notion 
of the Catholics, that their communion is 
the most ancient." 

Thus far, my dear Sir, is the testimony 
of these gentlemen, clergymen of the re- 
formed church in Holland, and holding 
the highest offices in that church. The 
Rev. Robert Gan,the Mennonite minister 
of Ryswick, also says, in his Sketches of 
18* 



210 OPJGIN OF THE 

Christian Doctrine, that the Dutch bap- 
tists are descended from those christians 
who inhabited, in a very early period, the 
valleys of Piedmont; and who, in the fol- 
lowing ages, spread themselves through 
different countries, and were commonly 
called Waldenses. In the year 1536, 
Menno Simons attached himself to them, 
and the Dutch baptists called themselves 
by his name, to distinguish themselves 
from the Munster baptists. 

Permit me still to share in your re- 
gards, 

My dear Sir, 
And believe me to be, 

Most truly yours, 

W. WARD, 



^lENNONITES. 211 

LETTER XX. 

To the Rev. Joseph Kinghorn, Norwich, 

Liverpool^ April 17, 1821. 
My Dear Brother, 

I hope that in these four letters relative 
to the Mennonites, you will find the infor- 
mation you wished for. The particulars 
in this letter were communicated to me 
in several conversations, by the Rev. N. 
Messchaert, of Rotterdam, a learned and 
very respectable Mennonite minister. 

Divine service among the Mennonites is 
conducted in the same manner as among 
the reformed ; viz. the service is opened by 
reading the scriptures; then singing ; then 
a short prayer; singing again; a longer 
prayer; singing; then the sermon, in the 
midst of which the minister exhorts to 
charity, and a collection is made in two 
bags, carried from pew to pew by the 
deacons, for the expenses of public wor- 
ship, as candles, &;c. and for the poor ; 
one bag for the poor, and the other for 
the expenses of worship : then the sermon 
is concluded; then prayer, and singing, 
and dismissal The collections are made 



212 PRESENT STATE OP TI^ 

in some places at the doors, at the close 
of worship. They have preaching only 
once on the sabbath ; have no other meet- 
ings, except on the days the Lord's-sup- 
per is administered, when the minister 
preaches an evening lecture. 

Some of their ministers are educated at 
the Mennonite college at Amsterdam, at 
the head of which is the Rev. R. Koop- 
mans. Others are unlettered, though sen- 
sible men. They are chosen in some 
places by the congregation, and in others 
by the elders and deacons. 

They wear the same costume as the 
ministers of the reformed church, a band, 
and a slip of black satin hanging dowii 
the back, and extending from the collar to 
the bottom of the coat. 

They administer the Lord's supper 
twice, thrice, or four times during the 
year. They reject infant baptism, and 
refuse to commune at the LonTs table with 
those who administer the ordinance to children^ 
unless re-sprinkled: They train up cate- 
chumens under their ministers, and, about 
the age of sixteen, baptize them, tak- 
ing from the candidate, before the mi- 
nister and elders, an account of his repen- 
tance and faith, and requiring also some 
short account from him before the congre- 



MENNONITES. 213 

gation, on the day of his baptism. They 
baptize by pouring or sprinkling, as Men- 
no is also said to have done, once in the 
name of the Father, then in the name of 
the Son, and then (again applying the 
water) in tiie name of the Holy Spirit. — 
They profess to require also a consistent 
conduct ; bul it appears that they have 
little discipline. Many strangers crowd 
to see the administration of the ordinance. 
It is said, that none amongst them live 
without baptism. In some parts of North 
Holland young people, both bride and 
bridegroom, are baptized on the day of 
their marriage. 

Thev use in their c onsf relations a 
metrical translation of the psalms, and 
a volume of psalms and hymns of the 
sixteenth century, by Kamphevzen. An- 
other collection of hymns is used, compil- 
ed at the end of the last century and the 
beginning of this. 

The peculiar opinions which have pre- 
vailed among the Mennonites relate to 
oaths, to baptism, to resistance by force, 
and to the office of the magistrate. They 
judged that it was not proper for them to 
aspire to the magistracy, since the scrip- 
tures contained no rules for the conduct 
of magistrates, and forbade christians to 



214 PRESENT STATE, ETC. 

desire the chief seats. The two latter 
opinions are now generally exploded. 
Their affirmation is accepted instead of 

an oath. ^ • tt i 

The whole body of Mennonites in Hol- 
land is supposed to amount to 30,000 
persons, including children; the number 
of churches to 130. 

They have politely declined the sala- 
ries which the government of Holland 
offers to all denominations under its 
authority. 

1 am, my dear brother, 
Yours, very faithfully, 

W.WARD. 



MENNONITE OPINIONS. 215 



LETTER XXL 

To the 
Rev. W. H. Angas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

Cheltenham^ Jprtl 18, 182 L 
My Dear Brother, 

I AM much indebted to you for the in- 
formation contained in these letters re- 
specting the Mennonites. To whom 
could 1 then, with more propriety, ad- 
dress this letter on the doctrines they be- 
lieve, than to the person by whom it was 
translated? It is extracted from a sum- 
mary of christian doctrine, by the Rev. J. 
Gan, of Ryswick. 

On the fall of Man, — In the fall, man lost 
his innocence, and all his posterity are 
born with a natural propensity to evil, 
and with fleshly inclinations, and are ex- 
posed to sickness and death. The pos- 
terity of Adam derive no moral guilt from 
his fall ; sin is personal, and the desert of 
punishment cannot be inherited. Natural 
evils may, however, arise out of the trans» 
gressions of ancestors. 

Of the person and dignity of the Saviour,'^ 



216 OPliN'IONS OF THE 

The Son of God left, of his own freewill 
the state of glory in which he dwelt be- 
fore his appearing on earth ; and he be- 
came man in all respects like us, sin ex- 
cepted. The incarnate Son of God is set 
forth to us as inferior to the Father, not 
only in his state of humihation, but in that 
of his exaltation, and as subject to the 
Father. It must, however, be kept in 
view, that notwithstanding the incarnate 
Son of God is inferior to the Father, he is 
nevertheless, according to the purposes 
of the Most High, partaker of glory with 
the Father, and an object of religious 
trust and confidence in like manner as 
the Father. 

Under the head, the names of God, this 
author says, the One True God is men- 
tioned in the New Testament as the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
consequence of the near relation of our 
Saviour to the Most High. 

Of the death of Christ. — As the Saviour, 
being the Son of God, was entirely with- 
out sin, on account of his perfect holiness 
and freewill offering, his sufTe rings and 
death have this value in them, that God, 
according to his own gracious will, be- 
stows on all the guilty the forgiveness of 
sins, and hereby the pious, who believe 



^ 



MENNONITES. 217 

in Christ, are appointed to the enjoyment 
of abundant bliss hereafter. God is so 
well pleased with the perfect obedience 
of the sinless Saviour, that he will consi- 
der the anguish and pain to which the 
Saviour freely submitted, and particular- 
ly the death of the cross, as equivalent to 
the punishment the guilty had deserved; 
and, as the reward of the Saviour's merits, 
he will bestow upon those whom the Sa- 
viour acknowledges as his own, an abun- 
dant share of bliss hereafter. This is the 
effect of God's previous mercy and love. 
The sufferings of the Saviour in no respect 
tended to move God to a favourable dis- 
position towards mankind; but these suf- 
ferings were endured to show his holy 
aversion to sin, and to give to the world 
the strongest proofs of his mercy; and 
thus to inspire the penitent with a perfect 
confidence in him their heavenly Father. 
Christ died for all men in this sense, that 
all men without exception might partake, 
upon conversion and faith, the salvation 
obtained by him. This salvation is uni- 
versally and unrestrictedly offered in the 
preaching of the gospel: none are ex- 
cluded but by their own fault.* That 
which makes us partakers of the benefits 
19 



218 OPINIONS OF THE 

of his death and sufferings, is the union 
we have in his sufferings, his merits, and 
in his glory. 

On faith and conversion. — Salvation con- 
sists in the knowledge of God's holy will; 
in the forgiveness of sins; in the supports 
of the Holy Spirit; and in the enjoyment 
of heaven. In order to partake of this sal- 
vation we must beUeve in Christ, which 
consists in acknowledging him as the de- 
liverer and king bestowed by God, to re- 
ceive as truth all that which he taught, 
and to repose tranquilly on his assurances, 
and to be ready to obey all his commands. 
By this faith we are more particularly to 
understand, the humble, believing, and 
thankful, embracing of the rich and mer- 
ciful purpose of God in the Saviour's suf- 
ferings and death upon the cross. In or- 
der then to believe, it is necessary that we 
should in the beginning have a pious dis- 
position, that is conversion. This con- 
version consists of that moral reformation, 
whereby men not only pass from a sinful 
to a virtuous life, but also reject sinful de- 
sires and become disposed to do all the 
will of God. Regeneration refers to that 
change of mind whereby we become 
new creatures, or new men, and this is the 



MENNONITES. 219 

same as conversion. The effect of 
faith in Christ, is a zealous observance of 
duty, united to the desire of advancing in 
moral perfection. 

Of justification, — We are justified by 
faith in Christ ; that is, by this faith we 
are freed from guilt, and considered and 
treated as innocent, sin being cancelled. 

Of sanctification. — It is the duty of those 
justified by faith in Christ, to apply them- 
selves to the practice of true piety, and 
in this they are assisted by the Holy Spi- 
rit's influences on the mind, which are en- 
lightening, sanctifying, inspiring holy feel- 
ings and encouragements to duty. These 
influences are also consoling ; and these 
benefits of the Holy Spirit are the portion 
of all the pious and prayerful. 

Of water baptism. — The solemn ordi- 
nance of Christian baptism consists in an 
immersion, or in pouring upon, of water, 
in the name of the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. The words, in the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Gfiost, signify faith in God as the univer- 
sal Father; in Jesus Christ, as the Son 
of God; and in the Holy Ghost as the 
power of God, by whose immediate influ- 
ence the apostles spoke with divine au- 



220 oPIXIo^'S of tHe 

thority, confirming the commission with 
miracles. Immersion in, or the pouring 
upon, of water, is a proper image of pu- 
rification, and therefore this ordinance 
signifies the purifying of the mind, the for- 
saking of sin, and the obligation to a holy 
life : hence baptism is called the laver of 
regeneration. It further signifies the em- 
bracing of the christian religion, and in- 
troduces us to christian communion. As 
the embracing of the christian religion 
promises to the guilty the forgiveness of 
sins, so baptism is a sign of acquittal 
from all former sins. The proper sub- 
jects of baptism are all sinners who be- 
lieve in Christ, and who acknowledge 
it to be their duty to profess the Chris- 
tian religion. Conversion and faith are 
therefore indispensably necessary to qua- 
lify a person to receive baptism in a 
manner agreeably to its institution and 
signification. They who are the chil- 
dren of Christian parents, and have been 
educated in the christian church, are 
under an obligation to be baptized, as 
well as converted Jews and heathens. 

Of a future state. — Although acquittal 
from guilt is bestowed upon faith, with- 
out respect to works, yet salvation is 



MENNONITES. 221 

promised upon works of piety as the 
fruits of faith. The misery of the con- 
demned will be proportioned to the mea- 
sure of their crimes. 
I am, 
My dear brother, 
Your very obliged and affectionate, 

W. WARD. 



19 



222 NUMBER OF THE 

LETTER XXII. 

To the Rev. N. Messchaert, Rotterdam* 

Cheltenham, Jpril 19, 1821. 
Rev. and Dear Sir, 

I AM much obliged to you for the friend- 
ship you so obhgingly showed me when 
at Rotterdam 1 wish you could have 
put it into my power to have shown you 
similar attentions in England. Cannot 
you visit the brethren in this country ? I 
should be very glad to hear that a mutu- 
al correspondence and a friendly inter- 
course had been opened. — Stir up your 
churches to aid our society, and to share 
in the privilege of aiming at the extension 
of the kingdom of our dear and glorious 
Saviour. 

For the information of my brethren in 
England, our mutual friend, Mr. Angas, 
made an extract from tlie work you lent 
us. If there should be any mistake in 
any part of this account of your church, 
I hope you will excuse it as uninten- 
tional, and inform me of it by a line to 
Serampore. 



MENNONITE CHURCHES. 223 

Extract from a work published at Am- 
sterdam, in the year )8I5, entitled, A 
List of the Names of Baptist Ministers 
in and out of the kingdom of Holland, 
Avith intelligence respecting the Men- 
nonite churches. 

In the department of Amsterland there 
are fifty-two churches. In that of Maas- 
land, five. In that of Utrecht, one In that 
of Friezland, sixty-one. In that of Gro- 
ningen, twenty-one. In that of Overyssel, 
sixteen. In thatofGuelderland, two. In 
that of East Friezland, three. 

On the Continent. — In Neustadgodan,one 
church. In Holstein, two. In the duke- 
dom of Berg, two. On the Meuse, nine. 
On the Lower Rhine, eleven. On the 
Upper Rhine, twenty-six. In the depart- 
ment of Upper Viefne, one. In the coun- 
ty of Weisbaden, one. In the principali- 
ty of Baden, one. In the Upper Paltz, 
thirteen. On the east side of the Necker, 
four. In Prussia, twenty-teven. In the 
principality of Wiedneuweid, one. in 
Switzerland, several. In the counties of 
Salm and Saarbruck, two. In the pri :ci- 
palities of Minden, Lautern, Leiningen 
and Nassauweilburg, six. In the Upper 
Hynschen-Kreitz, one. In Nassau-Leigin, 



224 NUMBER OF THE 

one. In the counties of Walder, Witgen- 
stein, Barlenberg, and Leuwenhof, four. 
In German Lotheringen, one. At Pris- 
gau, one. Near Markerch, one. At Sal- 
mer, one. 

In Russia, three churches. 

In the United States of America, there 
are more than two hundred Mennonite 
churches; and amongst them some church- 
es contain as many as three hundred mem- 
bers each. Beside these, meetings are 
held in many private houses. They are 
scattered about in many parts, but in 
some places the whole population are 
Mennonites, particularly in Lancaster 
county and other parts of Pennslvania. — 
They are mostly the descendants of 
the Mennonites emigrating in great num- 
bers from Paltz. They are not to be con- 
founded with the English Baptists in Ame- 
rica, but agjree in doctrine with the re- 
formed church. 

It appears from this work that many 
Mennonite churches have no stated minis- 
ters, but are either supplied by their own 
elders or the neighbouring ministers; nor 
is it uncommon for one minister to supply 
several churches. 

To the lists thus given, are added no- 
tices respecting the removal, death, or 
settlement of ministers. 



MENNONITE CHURCHES. 225 

The compilers of this work declare, 
that the Mennonites form one undivided 
christian body, and that associations are 
held at different times (about Easter) and 
places, which appear to be similar to 
those held in England. In North Holland 
these associations used to be held annu- 
ally, but have lately been held less fre- 
quently and regularly. Some churches 
decline all union, as in England, with any 
association. The meetings of these asso- 
ciations are held in different places. The 
business of the association connected with 
Rotterdam appears to be, to provide sup- 
plies for destitute churches, and to exam- 
ine into the state of the Mennonite Col- 
lege at Amsterdam. 

There are no buildings connected with 
this college. The students receive theo- 
logical instruction in a room, containing 
the library, over the Mennonite chapel. 
The lectures are delivered in Latin, by 
the Rev. R. Koopmans, professor of theo- 
logy. The students attend at a literary 
institution in Amsterdam for instruction in 
Hebrew, church-history, physics, natural 
and moral philosophy, &;c. They have 
private lodgings in different parts of the 
city. This college commenced about 
eighty years since, and was at first sup- 



226 NUMBER OF THE MENNONITE CHURCHES. 

ported by the Amsterdam Mennonites 
alone: but lately, other churches have 
sent contributions. Six students receive 
support from the public fund : they are all 
intended for the christian ministry. Each 
student before his entrance must be ac- 
quainted with Latin and Gree k. 
1 remain, 

Rev. and dear Sir, 
Your very obliged friend and servant, 

W. WARD. 



STATE OF RELIGION IN HOLLAND. 227 

LETTER XXIir. 

To the Rev. J. J. Robertson, United States. 

Cheltenham^ Aprils 21, 1821. 
My Dear Friend, 

I reflect with pleasure on our inter- 
view at the Rev. Mr. Henshaw's, and on 
the time we spent together in going to 
Washington, and in that noble edifice, the 
Capitol. 

The spectacle of the 5th ult. was to me 
exceedingly interesting. How shall I de- 
scribe it? The magnificent hall occupi- 
ed by the House of Representatives was 
crowded to excess. Mr. Nourse and my- 
self were compelled to enter by one of 
the windows, and the pressure at the 
doors exceeded any thing I ever witness- 
ed. The dresses of the foreign ambassa- 
dors presented a striking contrast to the 
simple, unadorned appearance of the Pre- 
sident, his ministers, &c. In a plain suit 
of black,the President entered, with a few 
select friends, soon after twelve, and the 
band played a short air w hile he took his 
seat in the desk under the Speaker's chair. 



228 STATE OP RELIGION 

As soon as the Chief Justice arrived, he 
went and stood by the side of the Presi- 
dent, who then took up the bible, repeat- 
ed the oath, and read his inaugural speech. 
At the close of this simple but very im- 
pressive ceremony, the friends of the Pre- 
sident came around him, and presented 
their congratulations by shaking hands; 
when he retired amidst the sounds of mu- 
sic and the loud cheering of his fellow-ci- 
tizens. Except the band, not a soldier, 
no, nor a police officer, was present. 1 
had the honour and pleasure of being 
presented to the President and his lady 
at the levee, and of shaking hands with 
this very popular chief Magistrate of the 
United States. May America long, long 
preserve, as she advances in power, in 
wealth, and in learning, the purity of her 
institutions, and may some of your family, 
my dear friend, five hundred years hence, 
witness, with a gratification as great as 
was realized by myself, the renewal of 
the spectacle, in all its simplicity, of the 
5th of March, 1821. 

A stranojer is much struck with two or 
three novelties in the churches of the re- 
formed in Holland ; — the vast projection 
of the sounding boards; the two black 
streamers hanging down the back of the 



IN HOLLAND. 229 

minister, instead of a black gown; and 
the custom among the men in wearing 
their hats during the sermon. 

1 was much moved while in the pulpit 
of the Scotch church at Rotterdam, in re- 
calling the times when so many good men 
from Scotland found here a refuge and a 
Bethel. The portraits of a number of 
these worthies still give much interest to 
the vestry of this church. 

The interior of the Jansenist church at 
Rotterdam struck me as too gaudy. I 
was glad, however, to see the priest em- 
ployed in hearing the catechism of the 
young people. The Lutheran church 
had a large attendance. 

The French church was but thinly at- 
tended ; though, it ought to be observed, 
this was the afternoon service. In the 
morning the attendance is much greater. 

On the Saturday evening I went to the 
Jewish synagogue: between two and 
three hundred Jews appeared to be pre- 
sent. The chanting of the Hebrew, if 
one could have forgotten that it was in- 
tended for a religious service, was very 
fine. 

At Amsterdam my stay was so short, 
that I enjoyed very little of the company 
of the ministers. The Rev. Mr. I'hel- 
20 



230 STATE OF RELIGION 

wall, the English Episcopal minister, was 
the only person with whom I had any con- 
siderable conversation. But this inter- 
view was quite refreshing to my spirit. I 
was very sorry I had not time to contract 
with him a more intimate friendship. His 
spirituality and evangelical ardour have, 
under God, been much blessed here. 

Upon the whole, there are in Holland 
various appearances which indicate a 
considerable progress in the right direc- 
tion. The churches of the reformed ap- 
pear to be well attended. I was present 
at a missionary prayer-meeting at Rotter- 
dam, held for that night in the French 
church: the church was crowded. In 
the Bible Society too, there are, I believe, 
a number of very devoted men. The 
Dutch are so well supplied, it is said, 
with the Holy Scriptures, that this Socie- 
ty are constrained to turn their attention 
to the colonies. 1 was sorry, however, to 
find, that it is very difficult in Holland to 
introduce the Bible among the Roman 
Catholics. Mr. Ledaboer, with whose 
piety and zeal I was much refreshed, kind- 
ly introduced me to one of the free schools 
at Rotterdam. It was on a large scale, 
and appeared to be exceedingly well con- 
ducted. 



IN HOLLAND. 231 

I would wish for a place in your affec- 
tions and remembrance, especially be- 
fore Him who can save to the uttermost. 
Should jou be near the venerable Bishop 
Griswold, I should feel it an honour to be 
remembered to him. He is very much of 
a missionary, I hear. — I think that the 
Scripture bishops were the missionaries, 
in distinction from the pastors. They 
were employed in planting churches, in 
watching over those churches in a kind 
of patriarchal way, and in ordaining their 
pastors. Without the name. Dr. Carey 
is a christian bishop. The infant churches 
around us, over whom native pastors have 
been settled, often write for his advice, 
and consult him as a father; and if he 
hears of irregularities among them, he 
writes to them and gives his advice. Bi- 
shops, and missionary work, therefore, go 
hand in hand together. The office ne- 
cessarily arises out of the work, and out 
of that infancy of things to which a conti- 
nued extension of the christian church 
gives rise. 

I am, my dear friend. 

Most truly yours, 

W. WARD. 



232 STATE OF SOCIETY 



LETTER XXIV. 



To the Rev. George Barclay, Kilwinning, 
Scotland. 

London, Jpril 24, 1821. 
My Dear Brother, 

I WENT to America to be edified by its 
religious character and institutions, and 
xiot as an economist or a politician: you 
will not expect therefore from me anything 
which has relation to these subjects. Yet I 
mayobserve once for all, that the roads, the 
culture, the style of building in general, 
the vehicles, the extent of every kind of 
improvement — these come short of the 
same things in England. And who ought 
to wonder at this, when the age of the two 
countries is considered ? The winters in 
America are long and severe, and the 
summers hot. On the sea-board the va- 
riableness of the climate is very great, 
and pulmonary cases are very numerous 
and fatal. Yet still it remains true, that 
most of the deficiencies and faults of Ame- 
rica are the deficiencies and fauhs of 
vouth. After visitins: the states of New- 



IN AMERICA. 233 

York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New- 
Hampshire, Maine, New-Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Maryland, &c. and the cities of 
New-York, Boston, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore, I was quite amazed at the pro- 
gress of society in the United States : — 
these towns, these colleges, these courts 
of justice, these scientific and benevolent 
institutions, the extent of country culti- 
vated, these state governments, this ar- 
my, this navy, this powerful general go- 
vernment ! Why, my dear brother, when 
I considered that the other day this whole 
continent was forest, the exclusive abode 
of half-naked savages and wild beasts, all 
this scenery appeared before me abso- 
lutely as the effect of enchantment.* I 
may here give you the impressions made 
on my mind in passing through the state 
of Connecticut, and of which I made a 
memorandum at the time : ' That country 
must be a happy one, in which the poor 
can obtain a respectable education for 
their children for nothing; where each 
man of good character, without regard to 
his sect, can become a legislator; where 



* What a striking contrast between this and the death-like 
paucity of society among the Indians on the same spot during 
the preceding 500 years ! 

20* 



234 STATE OF SOCIETY 

provisions are exceedingly cheap; where^ 
except in particular towns, taxes are few; 
where there are no tjthes, nor the galled 
feelings arising from the unw ise elevation 
of one part of the people, on a religious 
account, over the other part, and where 
the people (as I had just seen them in 
Boston) meet in convention to amend the 
constitution of the state, with the same 
good humour as men go to the annual 
meeting of the Humane Society in Lon- 
don. — I saw several baptist ministers in 
the above convention as well as among the 
legislators of the state of Maine. — This 
may suffice for these subjects. 

Many of the places of worship in Ame- 
rica, among different denominations, have 
wooden steeples ; which, however, when 
painted, look nearly as well as stone. 
Amongst the presbyterians and congrega- 
tionalists, the vestry, or session house, is 
a separate, and sometimes a distant build- 
ing; the small vestries, as in England, 
opening into the chapel, where the minis- 
ter can retire, and see his friends and 
deacons, are very rare in the states. The 
minister goes at once into the pulpit, and 
pulls off his great coat or cloak, and 
throws it over the side of the pulpit. In 
the winter a pan of coals in a box is rea>- 



m AMERICA. 233 

dy for him to set his feet upon. — The ser- 
vices are conducted nearlj the same as 
in England ; but I was very sorry to ob- 
serve that our custom of lining out the 
hymn as sung, scarcely exists ; and that 
singing in many cases was profanely aban- 
doned to the choir, as though praise, at 
any rate, might be done by proxy; or as 
though the Object of christian worship 
was partial to such and such tunes which 
the congregation could not acquire. How 
any person can blame cathedral worship 
as popish, and admire these exhibitions in 
the front gallery, I know not. Notes en- 
treating the prayers of the congregation 
for the sick, &:c., are, in many places, sent 
up into the pulpit ; and, directed by these 
notes, the ministers visit the sick during 
the week. The reading of the Holy 
Scriptures does not commonly, I regret to 
say it, make a part of the services of the 
sanctuary, — Dr. Watts generally supplies 
the forms of praise to the American peo- 
ple. I have seen selections, the greater 
part, however, the compositions of Watts, 
by Dr. Dwight, Dr. Livingston, Dr. Wor- 
cester, and Mr. Winchell. American 
editions of Dr. Rippon's selection are not 
uncommon. The reading of their ser- 
mons prevails, I apprehend, to a consider- 



236 STATE OP SOCIETY 

able degree among the congregational 
ministers, if not among others also. The 
services are, in many places, concluded, 
in the evening at least, with a doxology, 
the congregation standing. — Blacks are 
members ol the churches of the whites, 
and sit down to the Lord's table with the 
whites wherever I travelled. Divine ser- 
vice seemed well attended in the states I 
visited ; and I should think that, amongst 
the presbyterians, the congregationalists, 
and the baptists, there are but few in- 
stances of a dry formal ministry, though 
there remains much of it still among the 
episcopalians. — I fear that there is among 
the baptists a considerable portion of 
that Calvinism which knows not how to 
unite duty with sovereignty, obligation 
"with privilege, watchfulness with perse- 
verance, and the necessity of prayer with 
divine influence. A baptist church prac- 
tising open, or chritian communion, I 
found not; and one or two ministers did 
not hesitate to avow, that they did not 
consider pedobaptists as in the pale of 
the visible church ! ! ! Is it not beyo!id all 
expression strange, my dear brother, that 
the peop!*^. who still complain so loudly 
that the baptists were imprisoned and 
flogged at Boston, should themselves act 



IN AMERICA. 237 

upon a sentiment so utterly contrary to 
christian forbearance and charity ? 

Elders, as the scripture name for minis- 
ters, is much used in some parts. Black 
cloaks are generally worn by the minis- 
ters in the New-England States ; and I 
saw several ministers wearing pig-tails. 

The number of religious institutions in 
America exceeds, if possible, those of 
England. Bible, Missionary, Tract, and 
Sunday School Societies, are very nume- 
rous. The American Bible Society is a 
noble institution, doing great good. The 
Orphan Asylum at New-York has been 
favoured with such remarkable instances 
of the Divine care, as to remind one very 
strongly of the institution of Professor 
Frank, in Germany. — The Deaf and 
Dumb Asylum, at Hartford, Connecticut, 
under the care of the Rev. Mr. Gallaudet, 
prospers exceedingly. I spent some 
hours at the asylum, enjoying a flow of 
feelings so sacred and so refined, that I 
can never lose the recollection of this vi- 
sit. Regular prayer-meetings confined to 
females, held at each other's houses, are 
very common in America. 

But there are some institutions exist- 
ing in America, which I have not heard 
of in other countries : — At Boston, an^l 



238 STATE OF SOCIETY 

in other places, a missionary for the town 
and neighbourhood is maintained and 
employed ; his work is to carry the gos- 
pel to the poor; to preach in cellars, in 
garrets, and amongst those who by their 
poverty, or their peculiar circumstances, 
or their disinclination, are excluded 
from the public means of grace. I met 
two or three of these interesting mission- 
aries. — Societies of ladies exist for assist- 
ing poor christian students by purchasing 
cloth and making them clothes. — Other 
ladies are united to work together one day 
in a week, fortnight, or month, devoting 
the produce of their sewing, &c. to some 
good object. One of the party reads for 
the edification of the rest. — Societies of 
girls, and separate ones for boys, are nu- 
merous : these have meetings, and devote 
a quarter, or a half, or a whole dollar a 
year each, to some christian object. — 
In the church under the care of the Rev. 
Mr. Payson, of Portland, a number of 
married females have associated, under 
a solemn engagement, that the survivors 
will, as much as possible, seek the spirit- 
ual good of the children from whom any 
mother in this association may be remov- 
ed by death. 

The different denominations in this 



15 AMERICA. 23& 

country come together in delightful har- 
mony, and co-operate without being ob- 
structed by those impediments which 
exist in other countries. — The Sunday- 
School Union, in New- York, exhibits a 
noble specimen of the true christian 
feeling; and the union flourishes ac- 
cordingly. 

In short, I found more places of worship 
in the large towns in America than in si- 
milar towns in Britain, and much genuine 
piety among the presbyterians, the con- 
gregationalists, the evangelical episco- 
palians, the methodists, and the baptists; 
and, as far as my journeying extend- 
ed, I observed a cheering exhibition of 
christian progress. As in England, all 
denominations of real christians are 
increasing; and all are growing bet- 
ter. The revivals in different sections 
of the union are greater than ever. I have 
made special inquiry into the nature of 
these revivals, and find, that the far great- 
er portion of those who commence a re- 
ligious profession under these impres- 
sions, continue till death to adorn the 
doctrine of divine influence. — Christian 
missions too begin to be more and more 
popular, and the duty of the church to 
identify them, as an integral part of its 



240 STATE OF SOCIETY IN AMERICA. 

institutions, begins to be more generally 
felt and acknowledged in this highly-fa- 
voured country. — What a cheering sight 
it was to see, on the 9th of last month, 
coach and waggon loads of missionaries 
coming into Princeton, on their way to the 
Indians : " the wilderness and the solita- 
ry place shall be glad for them." And 
how still more astonishing that these In- 
dians should be made willing to devote 
to the education of their children all the 
dollars paid to them by annual instal- 
ments, for lands, by the government of 
the United States. 

I Blessed be God ! the appearances in 
all christian countries indicate, that W€ 
are rapidly passing into a new order of 
things.* Indeed all the great events of our 
own times seem but the harbingers of his 
appearance, who is "the desire of all 
nations." 

Ever indeed yours, 

W. WARD 



241 EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN AMEPilCA. 

LETTER XXV. 

To Mrs. R. Stretton, of Derby. 

London^ April 25, 182L 
My Dear Friend, 

The letter you were so good as to write 
to me last year, exhibited a scene of la- 
bours, afflictions, and triumphs, on the 
part of my beloved friend, which was to 
me peculiarly interesting. Oh ! that my 
o^yn race may end with the same cer- 
tainty of the crown of righteousness. 

Since I received that letter I have been 
a wanderer. While in America, I found 
that the Episcopal church there, (once 
the Church of England) had undergone 
considerable changes. Conceiving that 
these alterations were not much known 
in England, and that they might be inter- 
esting to the members of that communion, 
I obtained the following account from an 
Episcopal minister with whom I became 
acquainted ; and, as a testimony of my 
highest respect for the memory of my dear 
friend, permit me to lay this communica^ 
21 



242 THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

tion before his amiable widow:— This 
minister says, 

"I will now proceed to answer your 
questions with regard to the Episcopal 
church in this country:— 

You ask, 1st. ' How many dioceses are 
there in the United States?' We have at 
present eleven, although [the Episcopal 
inhabitants of] every state may, when ex- 
pedient, erect itself into a diocese. 1. The 
eastern diocese comprehends Maine, 
New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ver- 
mont, and Rhode-Island. 2. Connecti- 
cut. 3. New-York. 4. New-Jersey. 
5. Pennsylvania. 6. Delaware. 7. Ma- 
ryland. 8. Virginia. 9. North-Carohna. 
10. South-Carolina. 11. Ohio. 

2. 'What is the government.^' The 
affairs of the church at large are regu- 
lated by a body, called 'The general 
Convention;' whose power extends to 
every diocese. This sits once in three 
years : although it may be called at other 
times, when some particular occurrence 
shall demand it. This convention is di- 
vided into an upper and a lower house. 
The first composed of the bishops of the 
different states, and the other of a por- 
tion of clergy and laity from the several 



IN AMERICA. 243 



dioceses. All motions may originate in 
either house; although the concurrence 
of the majority of both must be obtained 
before they pass into a law. Beside this 
convention, there is one held each year 
in every diocese, composed of the clergy 
and of lay delegates from every congre- 
gation. Here regulations are made for 
the government of their own particular 
concerns, (which may be various,) but 
they must not be contrary to the consti- 
tution of the general church. In these 
conventions, the bishop of the diocese 
acts as president, and has a casting vote. 
Out of the body of the clergy and laity 
an equal number of each is chosen to re- 
present the state in the general conven- 
tion. 

3. ' What alterations has the book of 
common prayer undergone ?' These are 
but slight, and principally of those parts 
which had a local reference. The atha- 
nasian creed is, however, left out — and 
the words 'he descended into hell.' in the 
apostles' creed, are permitted to be omit- 
ted. Some difference has been made also 
in the arrangement of the morning and 
evening service, and some amendment in 
the office for the sick, &;c. 

4. ' When and how was the convention 



244 THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

of the protestant episcopal church form- 
ed ?' This was done in the year 1789, by 
a delegation from the states. 

5. ' What revenues are there attached 
to the episcopacy ?' There are none al- 
lotted to a bishop, although every state 
may, by collections and donations, insti- 
tute a fund for their diocesan ; which may 
be great or small at pleasure. Hitherto 
our bishops have been maintained as the 
other clergy, by taking the charge of a pa- 
rish; and when they travelled through 
their dioceses, the churches they visited 
paid their expenses of horse-hire, &c. Ma- 
ny of our presbyters have a larger main- 
tenance than the bishops. But we have 
found that, by the bishops being obliged 
to take charge of a parish for their sup- 
port, they are obstructed in that over- 
sight which they ought to take of all the 
churches ; and therefore many of the 
states are endeavouring, by collections 
once a year in all the churches, to raise a 
fund— though no state is obligated to do 
so. In one of our dioceses, the bishop has 
a small parisli which affords him only 600 
dollars annually, and this is all his sup- 
port. 

6. ' Have you any archbishops ? Are 
they prohibited?' They are not even once 



IN AMERICA. 245 

named amongst us, as we do not consider 
them apostolical. We have but three or- 
ders, bishop,* presbyters, and deacons; 
and consider archbishops only as bishops 
with a civil title, and not as necessary for 
the government of the church. The se- 
nior bishop has an apparent superiority, 
but it only consists in his presiding as pre- 
sident in the house of bishops. 

7. ' Have clergymen any choice in their 
church members .^' Yes, it is left entire- 
ly to them who shall be admitted to the 
ordinances, and persons wishing to com- 
mune, &LC. must give previous notice to 
their priest, that they may be examined. 
But the discipline varies in the different 
states. In Virginia, no man who lives 
without family worship, can be justly a 
communicant. 

8. ' How are the elections to parishes 
made ?' They differ with the charters of 
the congregations. Some churches choose 
their minister by the vestry, who are per- 
sons selected annually by the pew-hold- 
ers : others by ballot by the whole con- 
gregation. 

9. ' Have the bishops any patronage ?^ 
No, they can neither place nor replace a 

* The bishops, I understand, are chosen by pop Lilar election.- 

21 * 



246 THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

minister of themselves. All the clergj 
are left to themselves with regard to where 
they may settle; it depends entirely on 
the free choice of the people. No indi- 
vidual can have the gift of a parish ; nor 
can any convention or bishop place over 
a church a pastor, without the consent of 
the vestry or congregation. 

10. ' Have the bishops any cathedrals 
or houses attached to the bishopric.^' No, 
we have no churches nor dwellings ap- 
propriated to the bishops. Like St. Paul 
they chiefly dwell in their own hired houses. 

11. 'x\re your festivals and fasts the 
same as in the church of England ?' In 
these no alterations have been made, ex- 
cept such as come under the term local 

12. ' Are the responses made as in Eng- 
land by the clerk and congregation .^' In 
general they are : though we do not re- 
cognise such an officer as the clerk, only 
as leading the singing. And in many 
churches where a pious man cannot be 
obtained as chorister, the person employ- 
ed is prohibited by the minister from rais- 
ing his voice above that of the people. 

" The state of our church in this coun- 
try has been low indeed, owing to the 
want of clergymen in the first place, (that 
is. before the Revolution) and afterwards 



IN AMERICA. 247 

from the prejudice which was excited 
against her as an ofTspring of the church 
of England. But happily, things are now 
better; and, without any exaggeration^ it 
may be said, that no denomination of 
christians has flourished more than we 
have for some years past : " Her solitary 
places are become glad, and her decay- 
ed walls are building up." But alas! we 
want much yet from the Great Head of 
the church. 

" And now, my dear sir, permit me to 
ask an interest in your prayers, that I may 
ever be a faithful servant of the Lord, and 
a true dispenser of the word of life. I 
cannot expect ever to see you again in 
the ranks of the church-militant ; but O ! 
I hope we shall both join the song of the 
triumphant assembly of the first-born in 
heaven. May J ehovah-jireh be with you, 
Jehovah-nissi over you, and J ehovah-tsidke- 
nu^ the searcher of your heart, and your 
portion for ever. — Farev^^ell ! 

" 1 am," &c. &c. 



248 ANSWERS TO PRAYER, 

LETTER XXVI. 

To the Rev. J. G. Pike, Derby. 

London, Jpril 26, ISZl. 
My Dear Brother, 

I REJOICE tliat you have begun a chris- 
tian mission ; and that you no longer ex- 
hibit the awful spectacle, lately so com- 
mon in this country, that of a christian com- 
munity making no efforts for the spread 
of the gospel, and exhibiting less of bene- 
volent feeling than many associations not 
religious. 

Your missionary labours may not be so 
extended as to excite great public atten- 
tion; but a " spirit of supplication" may 
do more for you than if your resources 
placed you at the head of all the mission- 
ary societies. I fear we do not perceive 
sufficiently the immediate and insepara- 
ble connexion between divine agency and 
success in these efforts for the conversion 
of blind and infatuated heathens. 

But what power has produced the 
amazing changes, my brother, which we 
have recently witnessed among the most 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 249 

savage tribes ? Who induced the licen- 
tious Otaheitans to set the example to the 
heathen, and to give up idolatry at once, 
and to a man? Who constrained the 
people of Owyhee to do the same ? The 
American missionaries had not arrived 
there, when the gods were abandoned. 
Who has persuaded the drunken Ameri- 
can Indians to appropriate large annual 
sums, paid them for lands by the Ameri- 
can government, to the education of their 
children? Who has influenced the New 
Zealand cannibals to solicit missionaries ? 
Who has produced similar desires among 
the barbarians in Madagascar, and made 
them willing to give up the slave trade ? 
Who moved the prejudiced Hindoos to 
send deputations to the missionaries, en- 
treating them to educate their children ? 
Who could bring a thousand persons at 
Hartford, in America, as was the case in 
February last, under the same sacred im- 
pressions at the same hour, all deeply anx- 
ious on that subject which above all 
others is most overwhelming? Who could 
have expected, that in so short a time, the 
converted heathens themselves would be- 
come the most successful missionaries ? 
Frankrishnoo, a Hindoo minister, has re- 
cently baptized fifteen adult converts io 



250 ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 

Bengal. In all this who does not hear 
the voice which says, " Let there be 
light." And who can help connecting 
these propitious appearances, " in the re- 
gion and shadow of death," with our 
monthly missionary prayer-meetings? — 
"^ Prayer moves the hand that moves the 
world." 



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